Tag Archives: anniversary

Letters for Maggie

Such is 26 ….

I remember we were sitting around the kitchen table … Mom, my older brother, I think my sister Missy was there, too. I may have still been in high school. Seventeen, maybe? 

Mom was reading the local newspaper, and had flipped to the classifieds in the back where they parked the memorials. Where folks would send in pictures and tributes, often poems, always heartfelt, honoring the memory of loved ones in the wake, or on the anniversary, of their passing.

Mom found the idea of publishing these in the newspaper the funniest thing in the world.

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Letters for Maggie, The Girls

Speed Dating 25 ….

I figured we had about an hour’s drive to make our 7:15 reservations. 

I had the car out of the garage and air-condition-cooling by 6 p.m. 

Married twenty-five years, she knows how much I hate to be late. 

I hold the car door and she lowers herself into her seat … at promptly 6:35 p.m. 

Married twenty-five years, I know she’s never ready on time. 

She: Wait a minute. Forgot my cheaters. Can’t read the menu without ‘em. 

I get back out to hold the door a second time, and give the bridge of my nose a deep tissue massage until she returns and floats once again into her seat. 

As we pull out of the driveway, we Google Map our drive to check traffic. 

ETA: 7:37 p.m. 

My chest tightens. 

“Don’t drive like a maniac or you’ll make me sick.” 

Ah, the sweet nothings of anniversary date night. 

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