42 Years: A Love Letter From My Dad to My Mom

The days of our life

OK, this doesn’t have anything directly to do with the TV show of the same name. These are a few of the days that are central to my life

23,298 days ago – My bride of 42 years was born and without a miracle she would not have lived to meet me. Thank you Lord.
23,123 days ago – I was born, beaten by 175 days and never looked back, ADHD you know.
16,422 days ago – I first saw my bride at Eastern Kentucky University on the first night of freshman orientation. She was standing by a US postal service mailbox with a guy from my high school I didn’t like and I was wearing the dumbest beanie you have ever seen. Love is truly blind!
15,340 days ago – 1,082 days after meeting Becky we were married, honeymooned in a motel in Lexington for one night and moved into an Airstream trailer the next day.
13,162 days ago – Rachel C. was born and our lives and the world have not been the same since.
12,145 days ago – R. Michael was born and I have gotten to watch myself grow up in many ways. He did a much better job at it thanks to Becky.
10,059 days ago – William Trew was born and the adventure really began.
Today – our 42nd wedding anniversary and she bought us a HOUSE! Somehow dinner doesn’t seem to be enough.
• Lexington, KY – your home and my bug could drive itself back and forth without my help…and did so many mornings each summer!
• Richmond, KY – My home town, the city where we met, where we were married, had our first home(s) and you taught children who had only seen one book (the Bible) in their lives and many had no idea how to hold a pencil. You changed their lives for the better that year.
• Oxford, OH – Miami University to get my masters, Mike and Marilyn, cool ways to drive home and an apartment with a peep show.
• College Station, TX – Finally read the back of the marriage license and discovered that I had to return you to Texas as soon as possible so on the 4th of July of 1976 we drove into College Station, TX. I didn’t get the degree but I did get a home, a family and a new life – fair trade.
• Reno, NV – Hamilton for me Washoe ISD for you. The Reeses, eggnog and happy.
• Austin, TX – Always said we tried to move from College Station to Austin and ended up in Reno but we finally made it to Austin. 13 years? All kids graduate from HS, SGE, you get to retire from teaching, Rachel’s wedding and rehearsal dinner in our backyard and Judge Andersonof a bitc?.
• (Ringwood, Australia) – 2005 to 2008, almost 3 years apart, how did we do it? At least I did get you to London, Paris, Frankfurt and Melbourne. Best surprised look on anyone’s face ever on Christmas vacation! Oh yeah! Grandkids!
• Bryan, TX – back together again but no job, Dee died, your Dad had passed years ago and your Mom, dear sweet Mary Cecil, had PPA. Your cancer, bad disks and bad feet. This has probably been the roughest time of all.

Becky,

I cannot find the words to thank you fully for the life you have given me. Even though I introduced you to Mom and Dee as Becky Tackett you brushed that off as you have nearly all my mistakes.  I came into the marriage more of a child than I knew and you helped me to become the man that I am now. You have raised three very wonderful children who are full of life, love and their own share of troubles but with the tools to handle them.
I have no idea how many days we have left and I pray that neither of us has to spend many of them alone. I know that they will not all be happy but none will be boring. “may you have an interesting life” is an old Chinese curse, I believe, but in our case you have made it a blessing.

HAPPY 42nd Anniversary to my best friend, teacher, wife, lover, sparing partner and mother of my children.

Rebecca Jane Trew Rice