But the greatest of these is Love.

The two people pictured here don’t represent, for most of us, the classic picture of love and romance.  They aren’t the “beautiful people” we have come to associate with tabloid and magazine covers depicting the latest celebrity romance or breakup.  They are two ordinary people who taught me an extraordinary lesson about real love.  They are my maternal grandparents, John and Willie Ridgway, or Papaw and Nanner to me.

Their 66 year marriage was not what I would call an epic romance.  It was a great love story.  In their 66 years together they weathered the Great Depression, the tragic and sudden death of a 20 year old daughter leaving behind a 4 month old daughter of her own for them to help raise, a cross country relocation, multiple muggings after moving to California, and the other sundry challenges and hardships you might imagine that any two people who lived together for 66 years would have to encounter. Read more