Eleven years ago, we got married for the fourth time.
That sentence sounds like the setup to a joke, and honestly, we’ve both earned the right to tell one. We’d each learned a few things along the way—some the easy way, some the “well, that was a choice” way.
By the time we met, we’d both been around the block a few times. But we met at just the right time. When we fell in love, it was just us, full of hopes and dreams and a world of possibilities. I didn’t know exactly where those dreams would lead, but I had a feeling that as long as I was with you, I’d end up someplace good.
We both feel blessed that our paths crossed when they did. Maybe God sent us. Maybe we’d finally learned enough to recognize our best friend when we found them. Either way, it has been so right.
We’ve raised kids, weathered the usual bumps, and now that we’re both retired, we spend a whole lot of time together. Happily, it turns out he still likes me even when there’s no workday to separate us. Most days.
Last year brought the biggest hurdle yet: cancer. He was there through all of it—steady, loving, and right beside me, even when I’m sure I wasn’t the easiest person to be beside. I don’t have fancy words for what that meant. I just know I never had to face it alone.
Eleven years in, I’m still grateful I get to do life with my best friend. Apparently, the fourth time really was the charm.
Happy anniversary, Richard. I love you. As long as I’m with you, I’m someplace wonderful.
Hubby’s oldest child, Senior S’kiddle to me, is getting married next month.
In our excitement, we offered our lake home as the location for the rehearsal dinner. A low country boil for 35 people.
A “casual” outdoor affair.
I am learning that “casual” is a word that leaves out a great deal of information.
Like how many people with power tools will need to invade your house and your sanity before “casual” begins.
When we made the offer, we had not even fully moved in. There were still boxes to unpack and plenty of improvements we had put on the back burner when this was just our weekend place.
Apparently, the back burner has now been turned up to HIGH.
First, we needed a shop.
You might reasonably wonder what a shop has to do with a rehearsal dinner.
In our case? Everything.
The contents of the old shop were taking up space in the house and around the grounds.
All that stuff needed somewhere to live that wasn’t where our guests were going to eat.
Preferably somewhere that made this look like a lake home instead of a junkyard.
The tree guys cleared the trees that were narrowing the driveway and taking up the space we needed for parking.
The next crew put in drainage and a retaining wall so the future shop wouldn’t float away.
The concrete guys broke up the cracked concrete and poured newer, better, bigger concrete for the shop and extra parking.
Then… nothing
A quiet week or two while the concrete cured.
Have you ever waited for concrete to reach the proper degree of concreteness?
There is not much to report.
I looked at it.
It looked pretty concrete to me.
Apparently, it needed to be more concrete.
I waited some more.
When it was finally baked to perfection, the shop builders arrived.
Then the electricians.
Then the insulation guys.
Then the air-conditioning guys.
And finally, hubby and I could move all the stuff into the shop.
Mostly hubby.
I helped as much as I could.
Well, as much as I was asked to.
It seems that at four foot nothing, with T-rex arms, I am not the first choice for the heavy-lifting team.
But the stuff was finally out of the way.
We were making progress.
Sassy, however, was having a terrible time.
Every arrival brought another round of barking, crying, and hiding.
Strangers in the driveway. Strangers around the house. Strangers making loud noises.
And just when one group left, another arrived.
As far as Sassy was concerned, we had developed a serious security problem, and Management kept letting it in.
Of all of us, she has enjoyed this process the least.
I’m fairly certain she is keeping a list of trespassers for the police report she intends to file.
Management will be named as an accomplice.
Meanwhile, the inside of the house was getting attention, too.
New wiring downstairs and an absolutely fabulous new mirror in the master bath brought more guys.
Plumbing issues brought more guys.
Even the shower doors required their own special guy.
Between all of this, hubby was not so quietly replacing the kitchen cabinet doors because the hinges were on the outside. And the knobs were turned the wrong way.
I did not know that was such a faux pas.
Apparently, we had been living with inappropriate hinges and sideways knobs.
Thankfully, that situation has been addressed before company arrives.
Once the shop was finished and filled, work began on the retaining wall around the house.
But first, a tree stump had to come out and the rose bushes had to move.
Then we discovered that the original garden area had been filled with plastic, metal, and assorted other things instead of proper fill dirt.
That was a surprise.
Not a good surprise, like finding money in a coat pocket.
But not a dead body, either.
Somewhere in between.
So there was more digging, proper drainage, and actual dirt.
No plants yet.
We will get to that ourselves.
There was also the beautiful stairway hubby built from the house to the dock. That deserves a post of its own, so I won’t give too much away here.
But between those stairs and last year’s deck repairs, we had a lot of raw wood.
Enter the painters.
The boss of this crew is a woman – the first female craftsperson in our parade of arrivals.
She and her assistant made all that raw wood look like it belonged in a magazine.
Sassy still wants them prosecuted, but I would hire them again.
Once everything was properly stained, we looked up and realized some tree limbs hanging over the deck needed to be cut.
Of course we did.
So those guys came.
Sassy filed another complaint.
Once she recovered from the sky falling down.
Finally, the original concrete guys returned to tackle the broken concrete on the lake side of the house.
In just a few days, they replaced the crooked, cracked mess with a beautiful paver patio.
The kind of patio where one would entertain guests.
Casually.
Those few days, however, felt like years.
Jackhammers do not improve with prolonged exposure.
Somewhere in all of this, I had cataract surgery.
I am now two weeks out, and despite all my misgivings, it went very well.
For the first few days, I could see nothing but light out of that eye.
I don’t know what made me think I would come out with immediate 20/20 vision, but apparently I was planning a miracle.
Still, in the grand scheme of our current life, the surgery has been a mere blip.
Which is quite a statement, considering how much worrying I did beforehand.
Next week, someone is coming to rescreen the screened-in porch.
Then hubby and I can do the planting.
And the power washing.
And whatever else we discover needs doing before 35 people arrive for this casual event.
Hubby has a two-page list.
So if I haven’t been writing much, now you know why.
Every time I think we’re finished, hubby checks his list.
Apparently, we are not finished.
We are happy that we get to be such a big part of Senior S’kiddle‘s wedding.
We look forward to having everyone here to celebrate the bride and groom and this new chapter in their lives.
I admit that a wedding deadline has done wonders for the home-improvement schedule.
By the time everyone arrives, the tools will be gone and the plants will be planted.
Sassy will be away on campus, which is probably best for everyone’s criminal record.
And if someone looks around and says, “What a lovely place for a casual little get-together,” I will smile.
Labor Day was never supposed to be about items on sale, weekend trips, or the last cookout of summer. (Or when to stop wearing white.)
It was – and remains – about people: the people whose hands, backs, minds, and hearts keep this country moving.
It honors generations of workers who laid the roads beneath our feet, harvested the food on our tables, kept the factory lines moving, taught our children, cared for our sick, delivered what we needed, prepared and served our meals, cleaned the places where we lived and worked, and performed the thousands of essential jobs that were rarely noticed – until no one was there to do them.
And many of those workers were children.
Many children worked instead of going to school. By 1900, more than one in five American children was part of the workforce – approximately 1.75 million children between the ages of 10 and 15. Some were even younger. Alongside adults, they spent long days in the textile mills, coal mines, factories, fields, and city streets, often doing dangerous work for very little pay.
Their small hands and bodies were not protected, they were simply considered useful – and cheap.
Children and adults alike worked from before sunrise until long after dark. They worked in mines that collapsed, factories that burned, fields that broke their bodies, and workplaces where an injury could cost them both their livelihood and their future.
They did the work that built America – but they did not always share in its prosperity.
Workers organized, marched, and risked their jobs – and sometimes their lives – to demand something better. Not just for themselves but for everyone. Their efforts helped bring about safer workplaces, limits on child labor, the eight-hour workday, weekends, overtime pay, and the belief that honest work deserved honest pay.
These protections were not acts of generosity from employers. Workers fought for them. Change took decades of organizing, investigation, public outrage, and determined reformers refusing to accept that this was simply the way things had to be.
And while much has improved, many workers are still struggling for safe conditions, fair wages, affordable healthcare, and enough time away from work to actually live the lives they are working so hard to support.
That is the real meaning of Labor Day: honoring the people who do the work, remembering those who fought to make work more humane, and recognizing that the struggle for dignity in the workplace is not over.
So enjoy the cookout. Sit by the lake. Wear your white shoes. Take the day off if you are lucky enough to have it.
But take a moment to remember: that day off was not simply given to us.
Generations of workers fought for it – and generations will continue the fight.
