A number with meaning today.
It was a Saturday then, today it is a Sunday.
It was late afternoon, September 21, 1974.
I was at the Bryn Mawr train station, heading into Philadelphia for a friend's party.
I knew her slightly, she walked past me without acknowledging me so I called after her.
She came back and we chatted. She was coming from visiting her sister at prep school heading home - into Philadelphia on one line, out on another. But our train was late so she missed her connection. Since I was early for the party and she had almost an hour to wait I invited her for a cup of coffee and a piece of pie.
And so began our remarkable journey together, one that exceed well over half my life and more than 2/3 of hers.
40 years.
There was a period of time when our relationship was long distance - after that first year, when she took time off between high school and college to seriously study ballet, she spent four years at Harvard followed by three at Oxford, while I remained in the Philadelphia area. The time we had together was precious, not to be wasted in petty arguments.
But then we were again in the same city, and finally had to begin the hard work of adjusting to the reality of another person. That was the first rough patch, but surely not the last.
We finally got married on December 29, 1985, after more than 11 years together. She had only been 17 when we began the relationship, and had never been on a date. Me? I was 28 with more failed relationships than I care to remember or recount.
Yet somehow we were quickly drawn to one another, strongly enough that the relationship survived the not infrequent periods of difficulty between us.
There were periods in those early years where we each saw other people, briefly, without serious involvement, but just enough to realize that we knew the person with whom we wanted to be.
Our relationship somehow has survived many hurdles, including changes of religion - one for her, several for me; changes of career/employment for both of us; my retirement and being at loose ends; and a LOT more.
I am now 68. When I tell my students about our ages when the relationship began (because adolescents are often curious about their teachers) when they ooh and ah I point out that when I am 100 she will only be 89 and thus able to care for me. The reality of that point was in doubt at the end of January 2013 when we found out that she had cancerous masses threatening her spine. Instead I left where I was then teaching to care for her. Fortunately despite what we were first told she has a treatable cancer that is now in remission and I have been able to return to the vocation which she made possible.
I am now 68. I never expected to live this long. I was unhappy as a child and adolescent, and know enough about the mind-body relationship to realize that the patterns of living I had as a young adult were pointing me in a direction where I was not likely to live long.
I am a teacher. I was almost 50 before I found the real meaning in the work I did, and even then it took a while. Yet I never would have attempted it had not she first suggested I explore it, then changed her own work plans to provide enough income to let me do so. She accepted the diminished standard of living we took on so I could do my studies and then teach, with a beginning salary only a bit more than half of what I had been making with computers.
In2013 I may have cared for her, but she had been caring for me in other ways. Those included several episodes with my heart before her illness, and an episode last Spring where the nurse at my school thought I might be having a stroke and I was in the emergency room and related for 27 hours. Turns out I am subject to ocular migraines, but she and I did not know.
40 years in some way is a very long time. In others it is just a blink of an eye.
We both brought scars to the relationship.
Too often I clung to mine as an excuse for not doing the hard work of growing. Despite that she remained.
We never doubted that we loved one another, but there were times - sometimes there still are - when we were ready to kill each other.
Yet here we are. 14610 days ago she walked past me at the Bryn Mawr train station and our real lives' journey began.
She did not have to come back when I called to her.
She did not have to ride with me to Philadelphia.
She did not have to accept my invitation to coffee and pie.
She did not have to accept my asking her out for dinner on September 27 of that year.
She did not have to agree to marry me.
She did not have to stay with me when I was impossible to be with.
She did not have to put up with my insecurity.
But she did all of those things, and even more.
I would like to think that I gave her as much in return, but I know I have not - yet.
But it has only been 40 years so far.
Maybe in the next 40 I can make up for it?
I am grateful.
I love her.
Hell, I'm still in love with her.
Thank you Leaves on the Current.
For 40 years.
So far.
Hoping for many more.
For the rest of eternity.
Peace.