This day, the curve of its numbers, its 2 and its 4, the late Mayness of it, all of its features and character will always and only mean one thing to me: my parents’ wedding day.

This is the first day in 62 years they have not celebrated it together. Here’s what I wrote about them two years ago, on their 60th wedding anniversary:

What started 60 years ago was not just a marriage; it was a family, a way
of life. It was jumping in an old Chevy and driving across the country.
Finally running away to California to start all over again — then
realizing that Kentucky was where they wanted to be all along. … There has always been a certain jauntiness, a sense that you didn’t have
to be what circumstances dictated. Dreaming was encouraged. …

And in fact, they kept on dreaming, right to the end of Dad’s life.