I met my future wife on the fifth of December some years ago. I was sitting with a friend and colleague in the lobby of The Priory, a Pittsburgh hotel. We had flown in from San Diego for a staff meeting. Ten feet away sat an adorable woman about our age, looking a little nervous. We thought she might be Sharon, one of the staff members hired since the last quarterly meeting, but we weren’t sure and, being shy and a little awkward, didn’t ask. Only when somebody who knew all three of us walked into the lobby did we finally meet.
Exactly a year and a day later, I waited anxiously for Sharon at the San Diego airport. We had gotten to know each as we worked together, mainly by phone and email. In the previous couple of weeks, we had acknowledged our feelings for each other across the miles. Now here she was at last, walking into my arms.
I gave her a small gift that day, a sign of hope for the new relationship we were building together. It was a musical Christmas ornament: a little angel. We spoke of it as an anniversary present, commemorating the day we had met. And every year since, I have given Sharon another musical ornament to mark the day.
There are many privileges that come with being alive and free and able to make choices. One of the best is the opportunity to create traditions that help give outward shape to our inward experiences. My relationship with Sharon now lives not just in our daily interactions but in our touchstones and customs, in the special symbols we have created to hold meanings more profound than words alone could ever convey. “Happy anniversary” only scratches the surface, but a happy anniversary it is.
