Let's do this every year...

I'm in Ohio visiting my extended family and today my 90-something year old grandmother asked me if this thing with my boyfriend was "serious." I said, "Well, if we survive the separation between Moscow and Japan, then yes it will be." I asked her how she knew that grandpa was the "one." She told me that she had never wanted to get married, in fact she announced it as often as she could. Early on, when she was 20, apparently she and grandpa had shared a dance and he'd asked her to a formal dance. Well, she borrowed her sister Betsy's formal dress as grandma didn't own one and her own mother came home and refused to let her go out as "no decent girl goes out on a date after dark!" But apparently grandpa persisted and 7 - yes SEVEN - years later he had gone with her to get a christmas tree. Apparently this tree was missing a branch in the middle, so grandpa cut one off the bottom and arranged it to fit into the middle. He helped her decorate the whole tree and said to her, "Let's do this every year." She agreed and a few months later they were married. She gave up her job in the city and moved out to the country with him. That was 61 years ago. They're getting very old now, but neither of them regret any of the years.