I know I have posted a photo of this vase before, but for me, it represents so much more than what you see.

To you, it may simply look like a beautiful vintage vase in exceptional condition. To me, it holds a story. It will forever remind me of a conversation I had with my dad, and of a love story that began 76 years ago today.

On August 28, 1950, a 21-year-old man and an 18-year-old woman stood before a justice of the peace and exchanged their wedding vows.

I still find myself wondering: How many 21 and 18-year-olds could make that kind of commitment to each other and then spend the rest of their lives honoring it?

But that is exactly what my parents did.

That young couple was Gene Paul Ingalls and Fern Loraine Patnode, my mom and dad.

Together, they built a life. They raised a family. They experienced joy and sorrow, successes and disappointments, good times and difficult ones, all the things that come with sharing a lifetime. There are countless stories I could tell about their years together, but there is one thing I believe everyone who knew them would agree on, they loved each other.

Mom and Dad both lived to celebrate their 67th wedding anniversary. Dad left this world shortly afterward.

During the final chapter of their life together, they were both living in a nursing home. They had separate rooms, but most days you could find them together, often sitting side by side and holding hands.

Everyone there knew them.

They called Mom and Dad “the lovebirds.”

There was something incredibly touching about seeing them together that way. Perhaps it was because, after all those decades, they still wanted to be near each other. Perhaps it was because they understood, even if no one said it aloud, that their remaining time together was growing short.

So, what does all of this have to do with the vase?

On their wedding day 76 years ago, Dad told me that his sister, my Aunt Fran, gave the newlyweds this vase filled with flowers.

And somehow, through all the years that followed, it survived.

I remember seeing the vase when I was a young boy. My sister remembers having it in her bedroom for several years when we were kids. Later, when we packed up our house in North Minneapolis and moved to the farm, many of our belongings were placed in boxes and stored in an outbuilding.

The plan was to go through those boxes “someday.”

As often happens, someday took almost 20 years.

When we finally opened those boxes, there it was.

The vase had survived all those years packed away, waiting to be rediscovered.

I asked Mom and Dad if I could have it. They said yes.

From that time forward, it has had a place on the buffet in my home, where it still sits today.

But I don’t really see a vase when I look at it.

I see a 21-year-old man and an 18-year-old woman beginning a life together.

I see the years that passed, and all the stories that came in between.

I see two elderly people sitting together in a nursing home, still reaching for each other’s hand after more than six decades of marriage.

And I remember the conversation with my dad when he told me how this little piece of our family history began.

Seventy-six years later, the flowers are long gone.

The vase remains.

And so does their story.

Happy 76th Anniversary, Mom and Dad.

Love and miss you both