My grandma and grandpa celebrated their fifty-fifth anniversary surrounded by their children, grandchildren and a lifetime collection of friends. I thought that Grandma had forgotten anything she may have known about being single. I was wrong.

As she was getting ready for the party, arranging her long white hair in a French twist, my grandma commented, “I’m always surprised when I look in the mirror and see all these wrinkles. I’m still a young woman.” I sat on the bed watching her primp. “So, what is the secret of a long, happy marriage?”

She sprayed floral cologne on her wrists. “Don’t settle.” “Don’t settle.” She tucked a stray wisp of hair in place. Turning the page of Grandma’s photo album, I saw an out-of-focus photo of nondescript steps. “Where’s this?” “That is where your grandpa proposed to me; we had known each other six weeks.” “Six weeks?”

My images of Edwardian modesty shattered. “I had a long courtship, it just wasn’t with your grandfather.” She giggled. “So, then I met your grandfather. He said he needed a wife to manage his money. He didn’t have two dimes to rub together.”

“Did you know that before you married him?” I asked, thinking of the tales I had heard about her well-off parents. “Of course I knew that. I also knew he was the one I had waited for,” she said. She looked at our faces in the ornately framed mirror. In my face she saw the young woman she had been; in her face I saw my future. — Beliefnet.com