70 Years of Love: Timeless Lessons from My Grandparents’ Extraordinary Marriage

September 13th is always a day that I feel immense gratitude. It’s the day that reminds me each year of what love truly looks like – my grandparents anniversary. My grandparents have always made a point to express their love – for each other, for their children, their grandchildren, extended family, and friends.

This year was extraordinarily notable, as it was the 70th year of my grandparent’s wedding. SEVENTIETH! Seven – zero. And that is a BIG DEAL. It’s not just that they’ve been married for 70 years, it’s that they’ve been in love for 70 years. They are often caught kissing, embracing, and sharing warm conversations with one another. It’s an amazing thing to have witnessed throughout my entire life and something I always knew I wanted for myself.

And I don’t, for one second, take that gift for granted.

Most grandchildren my age don’t have their grandparents in their lives anymore and if they do, they are often suffering from health issues. While my grandparents are definitely slowing down, their love for one another is not. Nor is their love for storytelling! 

They met in 1945 at a USO dance in Philadelphia while my Poppi was in the Merchant Marines and my Grandma was a Cadet Nurse. Neither of them wanted to go to the dance, but their friends drug them along. Their meeting was something movies are based on. My Poppi saw the back of my Grandma from across the room, approached her with a tap on the shoulder and a request for a dance. That dance turned into a trip to the local pancake house and a very long journey back to her house to make sure she and her friend got home safely.

Before my Poppi left, in the wee hours of the morning, he asked for another date while his ship was still docked. They went out the very next day to see G.I. Joe and when my Poppi put his arm around her, my Grandma ever felt a something she’d never felt before. It was a tingle, a warmth, a fluttering — it was the beginning of their falling in love.

I have heard them retell that story at least 30 times and I never get sick of hearing it. Today, at the shared age of 92, they still light up when they walk down memory lane and relive that moment of fate in their lives. In all their years of imparting their wisdom, some of the best have been as it relates to their love and how they created a life where they both thrived.

And while this is not my typical workplace culture or millennial post, I strongly believe that we can all learn from and apply these concepts to all aspects of our lives — romantic relationship or not. Here are the three lessons that stand out the strongest for me while witnessing their love:

• You need to have a life together, but also a life apart. No matter what you’re involved in – you must have your own hobbies, passion, and interests that you explore independently. You can’t be totally tied together or you never grow. For my grandmother it’s PEO and for my Poppi it’s his computer club. They share lots of hobbies together (like opera, bridge tournaments, and volunteering) but know how much value comes from their time apart doing what they love and sharing the experience through storytelling.

• Show your love. Don’t hold back on telling someone what they mean to you. My grandma is constantly saying,”I believe in hugs!” (and then hugging you very tightly) while also taking me aside to tell me how much I mean to her, with very specific examples of what that meaning looks like from her lens. I reciprocate it back to them both as much as I possibly can by showing up, listening, asking for more stories and telling them how much they mean to me. The best gift anyone can give you your complete presence and authentic voice — especially when it comes to telling them, specifically, why you love them.

• The more you see of the world, the more you understand people. They’ve been to Iceland, Central America, Spain, Portugal, France, Prague, Italy, Austria, and Budapest to name a few. Traveling was “always a good investment” and something they made sure we were aware of. They believe that experiencing other cultures is the only way to grow.  And as my Poppi says, “If you don’t experience how things are in other places, you have no education.” I couldn’t agree more! 

I will take these three pieces of advice to heart as I live out the rest of my days on this earth and I hope you’ll consider how they apply to yours.

May we all be so lucky to experience 70 years of having a life partner who truly makes life better!