Thirty-five years ago today, on a Tuesday evening at 6:30pm, Wendell A. Nickerson walked down the aisle in a dashing, white tux and agreed to take me as his — for better or worse until death do us part. My sister, Martha, was thirteen at the time. She was so shy she could barely speak to a stranger, yet she stood in front of more than 300 people and belted out, “Climb Every Mountain.”

If we had known how steep some of those mountains would be, I’m pretty sure we’d have run screaming out the door instead of smiling for the camera and saying, “I do.”

And we would have missed some of the most breathtaking moments in life.

The climb has not always been easy. Nor pleasant. But the view from the top has always been worth those moments of terror when we were pretty sure the rope was going to break and we would plumet to our deaths, crushed on the rocks below.

Instead, we tightened our grip on God, one another, and our faithful family and friends, and we kept climbing. We were determined to reach the top of every summit, as the song says, until we found our dream.
We are still dreaming together, and the whole thing has been a grand adventure so far. So, today, I raise a toast of iced tea to my hubby and say, “Thanks for being brave and strong and for never giving up even when it was hard. And thanks for not sending me back to my mother even when I was a pill.”

Love,
me