A week or so ago I picked up some things that had accumulated on the table in Peg’s room. I put them on the chest in my room and just this evening decided to go through and discard most of the items. Thought I should save the message on the card I gave her on her birthday. This poem was on the cover:

It’s an uncertain world
That we live in
where so much keeps changing so fast,
And things that we thought
we could count on
too soon become things of the past,
So with all my heart
I feel grateful
For the one precious part of my life
That’s there for me always, no question –
My wonderful, beautiful wife.

It always surprises me when I find a card that seems to say what I would like to say. It proves, I guess, that people who write the messages have had similar life experiences or are exceptionally good at expressing the feelings of others . Of the words above, “there for me always, no question –“ are perfect, and I believe her children would also say of their mother, “She was always there.”