Seven years ago I visited a website called FitnessSingles.com. At first, it did not seem too promising. There were women all over the country, but only one in Batavia, Illinois where I lived. She looked cute enough; blonde hair and an athletic build. But I thought to myself, “That’s too convenient. She’s probably just an Avatar to get me to subscribe.”

But when I clicked on her photo the profile came up. “Huh,” I said out loud. “She’s real.”

We had our first date at a local restaurant and ordered drinks and artichoke dip. And we talked and talked. She looked quite pretty heading into the restaurant with curly blonde hair and a summer dress. I sat across from her at the table and wondered how it would all turn out.

It happened that a middle school teacher that had taught both of our children was seated with her husband at the next table over. She glanced at us a few times and finally connected the dots that we were out on a date. “Oh that’s great!” she chimed in. “You guys have a lot in common.”

It turns out that we do. Our first official date was a cycling ride in the countryside. She was fit for an upcoming half-Ironman so I had to ride pretty fast to stay on her tail. And that tail looked pretty cute in her bike shorts. We sat down for a break on the lawn of a high school out in the cornfields, and she asked, “Have you ever been out here?”

I replied, “I went to school here for three years.”

And that’s how our relationship proceeded. The more we talked, the more it turned out that we knew many of the same people. Both our daughters attended Augustana College. All our kids went through Batavia High School. And once they met, they all got along well together.

Which was a joy on our wedding day three years ago when they all joined in the wedding party and we celebrated joining our families together.

That is not to say there are no challenges to melding families. We’re like every married couple in having to figure out financial plans, living arrangements, and work-life balance. We’d done many things right and a few things wrong. Celebrating a happy anniversary is as much about working at marriage as it is about having a perfect one.

She came from a divorce. I came from the loss of a wife to cancer. Both of us had grief and some anger to work through as we figured our way forward from that first date. So we took our time using the “L” word because that puts a bit of weight on things as you begin to share worlds.

 

We began to share friend networks. She introduced me to her triathlon clan and I introduced her to my longtime buddies that had shared high school sports and college and lives together. That first Labor Day we traveled to Wisconsin and rode the Wright Stuff bike event, camped in tents, and hung out with a gaggle of teenagers grabbing a last bit of summer before September took over.

It all felt right. We kept on with our respective parenting duties as her kids migrated from teenage years to college with the typical bumps in the road. My children wrestled with memories of their mom and seeing their father in a relationship after their mother’s passing. I may have taken things a bit quickly but have no regrets in that aspect of life. I loved my late wife fully, and for 28 years.

I now love my wife as a wholly different person and in many respects, an essentially different life. To put it simply, I appreciate my Sue for the person that she is. That she is attentive and sincere. That she tells me she loves me. That she is disciplined in her health and fitness and flexibly devout in her beliefs. We’re a good pair, if I may say so myself.

Recently, on the cusp of all this Coronavirus stuff, we were scheduled to head down to Tucson for a triathlon training camp. That afternoon, the term “social distancing” first flew into the public sphere. As we rode to the airport, questions began to arise in our minds about whether we should go at all. But the airport was largely vacant, and the fellow passengers respectful of space, so we traveled there and back with no incident.

It made us think about how difficult it might have been had the virus struck while we were on a cruise trip in Europe last October. Her mother took us all on that adventure, and we jumped on and off the ship on day trips touring Naples, Florence, Pompeii and stops in France and Spain. It was a wonderful lark and one we never imagined. It kind of served as a belated honeymoon for the two of us.

But being on a cruise ship during a pandemic would not be fun. So much of life is like that. There’s a certain amount of risk in everything we do. Often the question of safety or wisdom is about timing or dumb luck. Had each of us not gone on that website the day we connected our lives would have spun off in different directions.

That’s why every anniversary is meaningful. Not every moment in life is happy, but we can be happy in having lived every moment, and appreciating them for better or worse. Doing that together is what life is all about.