My Luncheon Sisters...(aka MDF)

Here's the thing about having a 50th Wedding Anniversary. It forces you to take a look back...and maybe a little reflection is a good thing.

I have always said I'm a very lucky person. Hey -- they don't call it Ritaluck for nothing!! And I believe the biggest stroke of luck in my life was when I met and married John Farro.

But, when I consider everything that went into our coming together -- it is shocking that it even happened. What were the chances? That an Iowa Farmgirl would get a job with the CIA -- move to Washington, D.C., and meet a young Pennsylvania man who just got out of the Navy.

We met one night at a party -- which was SO RANDOM....I can't even tell you. I had no idea who was hosting the party...I had a date with a guy who lived in the building (if you paid me a million dollars, I couldn't tell you a thing about him or that date)...and John was there because, at the last minute, some other plans fell through, and he knew the hostess...

RANDOM...I'm telling you -- RANDOM...

What if I hadn't gone out with that other guy? What if John's initial plan for that evening had happened? What if I hadn't started to choke on a potato chip? (in his version of this story, I was smashing a hand full of chips into my mouth, and he told me I'd be better off eating them one at a time.)

The other thing that strikes me -- BIGTIME -- is how very lucky I was that John turned out to be a decent, hard-working guy. My friend Valerie said it best, "no woman marries an asshole..."

Another huge stroke of luck -- we have both enjoyed basically good health. Holy Cow. My mother died when she was 67 years old, and my Dad was 73. How did we avoid cancer, heart attacks, stroke, horrible accidents or debilitating disease? 

All those things have happened to so many people I know...life cut short...

These things are on my mind because today, I'm having the MDF over for a post-50th Anniversary luncheon.  This special set of friends who only WISH they'd been able to make it to a 50th Wedding Anniversary Party.

The flowers arrived on Friday -- with a card that said, "From your Special Lunch Sisters..."

Evie and Sandy both lost their husbands over 20 years ago...and Sue's marriage ended soon after it began....

For the last eight months, during this rotten pandemic -- we've been getting together for lunch almost every week. Mostly, we take turns going to each other's homes...and for awhile, that was our best option.

They have been frequent flyers at my porch lunches this summer...(I hosted a popover demonstration, and then, a how-to-cook-raw shrimp lunch -- you would have been proud of me, Pat!!)

We have been TRYING to learn how to do selfies!!

We take turns -- the last time we were at Sue's house, I tried to get a picture with us AND her butterfly bush..!

When a new Mexican Restaurant opened in LeClaire -- we were there the first week!

 No marriage is perfect...certainly not mine. And sometimes, I think the MDF fond memories of their long-dead husbands have benefited from the fact that they died.  But these women have made me appreciate how very, very lucky I have been. 

When I find myself wanting to complain about John, or whine about the constraints of marriage, I think about the huge grief these women have in their lives...the loss, the struggle...and I look at things from a different perspective. 

On life. On marriage. On what 50 years as a couple means in the grand scheme of things...

Although "growing old together" is proving to be quite a challenge... 

I am grateful for my Ritaluck...