This week I celebrated birthday “anniversary” 65. That means I’m old enough to retire—again. My wife, Phyllis, bought me a birthday card for year 65, which says, “Now you don’t have to worry about dying young.” She also put a black 65 candle on my birthday cake. Despite her fun at the expense of my aging, this anniversary is anything but black.

An anniversary is the turn of the year that marks some remembrance. So we have anniversaries for births, deaths, weddings, and other yearly reminders of significant personal or national events. Anniversaries may sometimes be occasions for mourning, but most often are occasions for celebration, or simply observing notable milestones in the journey of life.

Getting old enough to retire isn’t bad. At this birthday anniversary, it’s not bragging to say that I know more than I’ve ever known in my life. I’m more experienced than I’ve ever been before. If you keep learning as you get older, you learn how dumb you are in comparison to how smart you could be. In fact, it amazes me how anyone could be bored when there is so much more to learn, experience, and share in this life. But instead of despair, it’s good to find some contentment. Kahlil Gibran confessed some mellowing with a caveat: “I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind. Yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.”

Some anniversaries are sad and become mind-days to recall and pay tribute to those who died from God-knows-what-all. We’ll always remember 12/7/1941 and 9/11/2001. Besides physical deaths, there are symbolic deaths of divorces, accidents, diseases, bankruptcies, crimes, and other griefs. Anne Morrow Lindbergh said upon the first anniversary of her son’s kidnapping and death, “The punctuation of anniversaries is terrible, like the closing of doors, one after another between you and what you want to hold on to.” Agreed. But we would do well to share Queen Victoria’s tribute for the Duchess of Kent: “That first birthday in another world must have been a far brighter one than any in this poor world below!”

What we have lost through death, we can’t reclaim. We can and should remember the dead, give gratitude for life lived, and continue love’s relationship that didn’t die with death. But such an anniversary is to last a day, not a lifetime; otherwise, it may sadden and diminish life with a premature death of the living. Most anniversaries seem to be happy ones—like the wedding anniversary Phyllis and I celebrate every year on March 1. Besides our wedding anniversary, we celebrate countless other dates as “the secret anniversaries of the heart” (Longfellow): the births of our children and grandchildren, graduations, new jobs, promotions, and personal involvement in grand events noted even on history’s calendar.

Phyllis and I are finding special joy as we move toward the Golden One. Recently, a youth asked Phyllis, “What’s the secret to staying married so long?” She replied, “You have to keep a good sense of humor.” Others wonder if long-married couples ever thought of divorce. I answer in good humor, “No, but we have thought of killing each other a few times.” Being happily married doesn’t mean a perpetual honeymoon.

Phyllis agrees with Peter DeVries who said, “The difficulty with marriage is that we fall in love with a personality, but must live with a character.” Paul Sweeney wrote, “A wedding anniversary is the celebration of love, trust, partnership, tolerance and tenacity. The order varies for any given year.” Andre Maurois said, “A successful marriage is an edifice that must be rebuilt every day.”

Someone dispelled a myth about successful marriage by saying that whoever thinks marriage is a 50-50 proposition doesn’t know the half of it. After the unity candle flickers out and sparks occur, wise couples learn subtle ways to stay reconciled. Madeleine L’Engle believed, “A long-term marriage has to move beyond chemistry to compatibility, to friendship, to companionship. It is certainly not that passion disappears, but that it is conjoined with other ways of love.”

Mrs. George Bernard Shaw must have discovered those “other ways of love” to put up with her irascible husband. At a social, George argued that men have better judgment than women. Of all people, he turned to Mrs. Shaw to support his argument. Shrewdly, she agreed, “It must be true. You married me, and I married you.” But George also said, “Think what cowards men would be if they had to bear children. Women are altogether a superior species.”

In agreement with Oliver Goldsmith, “I chose my wife, as she did her wedding gown, for qualities that would wear well.” Despite Phyllis and my being ordinary human beings, our marriage has worn extraordinarily well. It has been said that in public you can usually tell the couples who are married: They’re the ones not talking to each other. But Phyllis and I still talk and laugh at home and in public—so much so that we might raise doubts about our matrimony.

Yes, we are married. And we both believe with Irving Stone, “The best romance is inside marriage; the finest love stories come after the wedding, not before.”

(Copyrighted 2002; excerpted and used by permission 2011).

(Johnnie Godwin spent most of his career at LifeWay Christian Publications in a variety of positions. In retirement, he writes, speaks and consults with great complement and mutual support from Phyllis, his wife of 55 years and the one he refers to as his better two-thirds. “The Anniversary Wisdom” contains excerpts from Johnnie’s writings on the occasion of his 46th wedding anniversary. His article, “Life’s Best Chapter: Retirement” appeared in Challenger Jan-March 2009 issue.)