The Celebration of a Fifty Year Marriage Revealed the Strategy for Happiness

Our lives go by in the blink of the eye but every second is an opportunity to bring joy to the ones you love

Walter Rhein
Thirty over Fifty
Published in
6 min readAug 24, 2024

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A wedding cake to celebrate a 50th wedding anniversary. It is a three level cake with bride and groom figures on the top. The caption reads, “50 years goes by in the blink of an eye.” The cake is surrounded by flowers.
Image by Walter Rhein

Every now and then our perception is pried away from the trivialities that occupy our daily existence. In those moments, we are granted a brief insight into the true nature of reality. Witnessing my wife’s parents celebrate 50 years of marriage was one such experience.

50 years! What joy! What melancholy sorrow! What profound humility! Where did the time go?

They conducted the occasion like a wedding. Those of us who had gathered to witness felt a new solidarity with the temporal ripple that had so impacted our own lives.

A half century ago, a woman married a man. That choice was part of a series of events that brought my children into existence. That sequence stretches on into the infinite future and the eternal past. Let the chain remain unbroken.

Watching that ceremony helped me better perceive and embrace the mechanism that will enable us to fulfill our longing to be loved.

I now understand the man who lives backwards

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Thirty over Fifty
Thirty over Fifty

Published in Thirty over Fifty

Forum for the “30%” of Medium writers, aged 50 years (fifty years) and over, to add their voices. No political stories/articles accepted, please read the Submission Guidelines. Readers & Followers of all ages are welcome to read.

Walter Rhein
Walter Rhein

Written by Walter Rhein

Certified English and physics teacher. Editor, journalist, illustrator and novelist. walterrhein@gmail.com

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