Love.

A few weekends ago I headed down to the Springs to visit my dad while my mom was out of town. I was looking through things, as I often do while I'm at home, and I came across a small calendar/planner. It looked like it was printed in the 60's or 70's and when I opened it, I realized that it was, in fact, pretty old.

It was my mom's when she was graduating high school and entering college. I think she had probably recently found it, and I was happy to stumble upon it. As I flipped through the pages, I smiled because her handwriting looked so similar to how it does now. She had things written in it like "first weekend at IU!" with a smiley face next to it, that to this day she still writes next to her calendar entries. She had different birthdays marked, event dates, and the norm for anyone's planner.

What made me the happiest were what I saw in the month of October.

"My 18th birthday!

Mark's 19th birthday!"

My mom had my dad's birthday marked as well as a date marked "one year anniversary." It was really special to see my mom's teen-aged swoonings for my dad so many years ago. But what was most special was knowing that they are still very much in love some 30+ years later.

In today's culture, or under any circumstances really, I am very lucky.

Their freshmen year at Indiana University.