Sixty years.

May the Lord bless you from Zion,
all the days of your life
That you may share Jerusalem's joy
and live to see your children's children.
Psalm 128:5-6

Four generations gathered together last night to celebrate my Nana and Grandpa's 60th wedding anniversary. My mom is the fifth of their nine children, and, although she (and twenty three more of us!) were unable to attend the dinner held in their honor, we still filled the room to capacity!

I just love when so many of us are able to be together like this. Some of my happiest memories are of past family gatherings, where old and young alike joined together in games of Trivial Pursuit, or Uno, or, as I was recalling for my own children recently, brutal volleyball matches out on my Aunt and Uncle's wide back lawn! Holiday gatherings were joyous occasions, remembered now with a sweet sense of nostalgia, tinged with just a bit of disbelief that it could really have been so many years ago that my brothers and cousins and I were the same ages our children are now.

So much of my early faith formation can be credited to my grandparents. My childhood parish, where my Grandpa was one of my first CCD instructors, is the one to which they still belong. Right to Life rallies and marches were attended together, and they have been to me an exemplary model of "openness to life". Small acts--a Hail Mary and a Glory Be prayed together at the outset of shared trips in their big green van, family friendships with parish priests, grace before meals, my Grandpa's colloquial "See how the Lord provides!"--demonstrated a living faith that Darren and I fervently hope to impart to our own children.

Eyes alight, my Nana recounted for me details of her wedding day as if it was only yesterday that she and her handsome young husband exchanged their vows. She remembers it all: the early morning Mass, because they'd been fasting since midnight; wearing her wedding gown all day long as they visited family and friends; the simple evening reception; the two day trip from St. Louis to my hometown, where she and my Grandpa established the strong and sturdy roots of my growing family tree.

I pray that Darren and I will continue to be as richly blessed in our marriage as they have been in theirs, and that we, too, will live to see our children's children. Happy Anniversary, Nana and Grandpa!