When the Cookie Crumbles

 When the Cookie Crumbles

 Last week, my husband, who barely knows how to fry an egg, asked me to teach him to bake cookies. So we lined up ingredients, and he rolled out a tasty batch of Cream cheese sugar cookies. This week, Bill wanted to make his grandmother’s sugar cookies.

 We cut the recipe to five instead of 10 cups of flour (thank goodness). After measuring, mixing, rolling and baking, several dozen decent-looking sugar cookies line the counter. So we sit back to enjoy a warm cookie. Ahhhh. No! Arrgh! Something tasted off!

 Might it have been the two-years-out-of-date dry buttermilk I gave him to use? They only put those dates on products so you buy more. Right? Buttermilk is nothing more than sour milk, so what can go wrong with a can nestled in my refrigerator for several years?

 As I scooped them into the wastebasket, Bill said, “At least save a few to eat with coffee. That might help the taste.”

 We are now in our 61^st year of marriage. For Valentine’s Day, I’d like to share some ideas with you young ‘uns about what has kept our love light burning through the centuries . . . in spite of sour buttermilk.

 We learned to rely on each other. We both graduated college at the same time, and we had married a year earlier. The first place we interviewed for teaching jobs said because we might have differences and students might sense tension, they wouldn’t hire us.

 Then the superintendent of schools from Alexandria, Virginia, came to Bloomsburg State College to interview. He said our marriage would be no problem. We wouldn’t see each other. I taught at a high school, and Bill taught in a trailer outside an eighth grade school with 800 students.

 Immediately after we graduated, we loaded our car with those wonderful wedding gifts and off we went, three hours from home, to teach summer school. So those first years of marriage we couldn’t go running home to mama when we had a spat. We, who grew up in a rural area, were alone in a big city with one car. You bet, we learned to rely on each other.

 We learned to allow separate interests and find similar ones. Bill likes hunting, sports and woodworking. I like to read and write. But we sit side-by-side to solve jigsaw and Sudoku puzzles.

 We learned to give each other space and grace. When we’re pursuing our separate interests, we like to be alone. But if Bill “visits” my office when I’m writing, that’s fine too. And vice versa, if I interrupt his woodworking.

 We learned to help each other out. I help him find things in the refrigerator. He finds everything I lose, even the back of an earring in a cardboard newspaper box in the garage—months after I lost it.

 We learned to rub our feet and walk on when we stepped on each other’s toes.

 We learned not to criticize each other for mistakes (see opening story).

 I learned I am not always right (see opening story).

 I treasure the pendant Bill gave me for my last birthday. The engraving on the back reads: Shirley, I loved you then, I love you still. I always have, I always will. William.

 We’ve learned to treasure each day the Lord gives us. Life becomes more fragile as you age, and suddenly heaven awaits. But you want to see grandchildren marry and cuddle great-grandchildren. You want to write another book, build another birdhouse. There’s always something that makes you want to live on. And that’s good. But we know life’s going to end.

 So we do our best to leave a legacy of grace and faith, and we wish the same for you.

 Happy Valentine’s Day!