JEANNE BRAGG, Post Columnist
Posted: Sunday, June 14, 2009 6:59 am

We are celebrating a big occasion at our house this week.

We are celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary.

Forty years. Wow. It even takes MY breath away.

We’ve been married almost twice as long as we were old when we met ... and now we celebrate with three beautiful children, two wonderful sons-in-law and finally a grandbaby.

We were so fortunate to have had loving parents and equally fortunate to celebrate good health. Many others have not been that lucky.

Our children often ask us what the secret to staying happily married is.

I tell them I don’t know: I think it’s a crapshoot. Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn’t. We’ve just had a very lucky toss of the dice.

We both agree that humor has important and that all-important issue—money—was never a nightmare. We agreed early on to never spend more than we could afford and were fortunate. In the early years, I had better jobs than Tommy, and while we never saved much, we didn’t spend much either.

Laughing and staying within budget have helped.

Our children know that the road hasn’t always been peaches and cream.

There have been times when I’ve wanted to wring his neck (and more) and pray to never see him again; I’m sure he has felt the same way about me. Most of the time, though, I have felt I couldn’t breathe without him. Fortunately those times have prevailed.

Through the grace of God we made it through the hard times and were lucky to find our way back.

Our children called to wish us Happy Anniversary, and one said: “Man, Mom ... 40 years is a long time. When you’re in your 20s, you FALL in love. Then when you’re in your 30s, it’s a different kind of love. Then you have kids and everything changes. Then you turn 40 and have issues with your children and parents. ... Forty is a really LONG time.”

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Our dice have fortunately fallen the “right” way.

TV guru Dr. Phil asked a couple who were married 45 years what the secret to being married so long was and the wife responded: “We never fell out of love with each other at the same time.”

Maybe that has been our secret, too. We have also been blessed with many friends and wonderful families as support systems. And we live in a community with such strong moral values and a wonderful quality of life.

Tommy says every other day of the week ... “We live like kings.”

We live better than any king I’ve read about.

We may not have servants at our beck and call ... but we certainly eat better than they did and don’t have to fear for our lives daily.

We have the world at our touch through modern communication, freedom to express our sentiments, choices about what we buy and roofs over our heads. Better than kings.

Before we married in 1969, we listened to the Beatles’ “When I’m Sixty-Four,” a song aimed at parents but enjoyed by our generation. The lyrics were catching and melody pleasant, but getting older and losing hair didn’t seem like realities 40 years ago.

By this time next year, we will both turn that age.

I’m already looking forward to “filling out postcards and dropping him lines... that I’m his forevermore.”

And I’ll still tell him I’ll need him and still tell him I’ll feed him ... and oh so happily send him a Valentine ... if we’re lucky enough to make it to 64.”

Thank you, Lord.

‘Til next week.