Golden years.

My parents celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary today and just like it did with their silver one, physical distance separates me from them on this momentous occasion.
Exams in engineering college then, life in the USA now.Hopefully I'll make it to the diamond one!!
My sister celebrated her 21st wedding anniversary yesterday and I will be completing 20 years of married life by God's grace in a few months.The reason I'm mentioning this is because, I think after a few years, married life is a blur...either a good blur or a bad one,but a blur nonetheless. I don't mean it in a negative sense, but in a more practical sense. The first few years take a lot of work and then, there is a sense of stillness ( again this applies to an average marriage...not the extreme ones). No speedbumps, no screeching halts, no resets...the stillness might end up being the kind of calm that lulls you to sleep peacefully, or the kind that keeps you awake,but it is sort of a steady place one hopes to get to or ends up albeit unwillingly in a marriage.
In the current,fast paced world,marriages seem to be made and broken with stupifying rapidity. I know of kids who were in elementary school when I was a newlywed, who are divorced already. The marriages I speak of lasted barely a few months.
By that token, achieving that stillness, I think, is a huge deal.
Any marriage takes a lot of work and since it involves two people, the effort put in by both vary tremendously and therefore the end result might not be pleasing to one or both parties and it is not an equal effort endeavor at all. At any given point in time one partner might be doing more that the other. Unless that becomes the pattern, the ability to give and take ensures that the marriage chugs along without major disruption.
Children bring an added twist to the marriage. Bringing them up is laborious, requires enormous emotional investment and detachment at the same time and can test a marriage and its very foundation. I know of marriages that dissolved because of kids ( a couple had a special needs kid and the guy took off, saying he couldn't handle the pressure), marriages that teetered because the parents had diverse opinions on childrearing.
And after all that, the empty nest. Grandchildren come along and both husband and wife can enjoy these children because they are not responsible for them - indulge them to their heart's content, spoil them and cherish them without fearing for their future -that cross is for the parents to bear.
I think making it that far with their marriage intact is exemplary and this is where my parents are today.
While I was not witness to their empty nest experience, I was around for everything else. I've looked back on their marriage with fresh eyes after I was married because until then, they are just Mum and Dad, not two individuals who created a home and brought children into the world and learned to live with each other through thick and thin. I know that they both worked at their marriage. At different points in time, they both contributed more or less and took turns doing it and made sure my sister and I had a secure childhood. We have high standards as to what a marriage was supposed to be because that is what we saw.
They have had their differences​ time and again, but never have my sister and I ever felt insecure about our parents and their marriage. I think that is the greatest gift parents can give their children- that stillness I spoke about. But the kind that lulls you to sleep the minute your head hits the pillow.Thanks Amma and Appa!!