Today is my parent’s wedding anniversary. Yep, that’s them in the picture. My dad thought he was the luckiest man alive, especially since he never thought it would happen. And there’s a story in that.
The met their freshman year in college. My mom, freshly from Hawaii, attracted a lot of attention in small town Ohio. And the fact the she was beautiful meant much of that attention came from guys. But my dad was persistent. He didn’t just ask her out, he asked her out constantly. He made it his goal to monopolize her time, so she wouldn’t get whisked away by someone else. He took her to theme parties. He took her to formals. He took her to the movies. 
He introduced her to pepperoni pizza and cheesecake.
And it worked. She fell for him. But life is rarely as simple or as easy as that. You see, my mother had been away from home through most of high school and all of college. She had a degree to teach English and, she felt, a responsibility to return home to her family. And so, after graduation, my mother left Ohio and my father was certain he’d never see her again.
Mom went back to her family in Maui – the other side of the universe back then. Even today, its a heck of a long way away. She looked for a teaching job in her hometown, but there were none. She looked at other towns on the island, but no one needed an English teacher except for one place. A teacher was needed in Hana.
She thought long and hard about it. Hana is a beautiful place, and she had a friend who lived there – in fact, I believe he was an old boyfriend. It would be a life in a lush tropical paradise – even by Maui standards. But Hana, for those of you who have not been to the island, is over fifty miles from her home. A days’ drive there and back, even today. She’d gone back to Maui to be with her family, but if she was going to live in Hana, she might just as well be on the Moon … or in Ohio. And so she returned, married my father and lived happily ever after.
We lost my mom a few years ago, and since then, 
my dad has asked me a couple times if I would write a novel based on what he and others refer to as one of the greatest love stories of all time. I won’t, because I could never do it justice. I am too close to it. After all, if it hadn’t had a happy ending, I would be writing at all.
But it is a good love story, and they had many, many happy anniversaries.