Spring is the rebirth season, the season of hope. The resting earth awakens, soil warms, birds begin nesting, baby animals are born and baseball returns.
Though we have just passed Valentine’s Day—the commercial season for celebrating love—I was reminded recently while covering a country-western dance—with a band that has been together for 50 years—that love is often celebrated quietly beyond the red boxes of Valentine’s Day chocolates and pink ribbons.
As I watched couples—most in their late 70s or early 80s—move across the dance floor, one pair caught my attention. Their connection was unmistakable.
Bill Feltes, 83, and his wife, Marlene, 85, said they met at a dance 65 years ago and have been dancing together ever since. They danced every dance, looking into each other’s eyes as if teenagers on their first date. Bill told me he doesn’t dance with anybody else.
So, while we celebrate new birth and rebirth this time of year and look forward to the new baseball season and basketball’s March Madness, perhaps we need a time or season to celebrate long-lasting love—a holiday that observes what true love looks like.
Reader Challenge
Find a couple who have been together at least 50 years. Ask what they do together and their secret for staying in love. See if you can make a photograph, preferably candid, of the pair enjoying each other. Some couples fish, walk or hike, or go to church, movies or dances together. It doesn’t have to be an anniversary day. After a half-century together, every day together is a special day.