The Love of My Life

During the summer of 1987, I met Gary at a Sierra Club event. 6 weeks later we were living together. From the beginning to this day, he is the love of my life.

Gary is an amazing man, a fact with which all my friends agree. During our working years we did everything together---grocery shopping, cooking, laundry cleaning, and especially the fun stuff. We had ocean kayaks and camped on the beaches of Baja California. We traveled, camped, hiked, and had wonderful times. We held hands everywhere we went.

Just before I retired in 1999 we got married. Gary retired in 2002. He is from Albuquerque and wanted to come back to New Mexico. Our equity from a 2 bedroom condo near San Diego bought us a 4 bedroom house on 2 acres in the country southeast of Santa Fe. As Gary says, "We fell into a vat of chocolate." The sky is huge, sunsets are fabulous, and the mountain views are wonderful.

Five months after we moved into our new home, my daughter and granddaughter Abby moved in with us. Soon after that, I found a wonderful opportunity to go Ecuador to study beadwork with Saraguro women (an indigenous culture in the Ecuadorean Andes.) But I felt I couldn't go because our granddaughter was 2, still in diapers, and my husband had never raised children. He insisted I go, and he took care of Abby all day while my daughter worked for 3 weeks.

We have had some rocky times adjusting to retirement and to my daughter and granddaughter's presence in our lives. Now we are closer than ever. Santa Fe has so many cultural events it is hard to choose. Gary records Rock Art (petroglyphs and pictographs) so that the images will last at least in photo and data form. He also builds furniture through classes at the community college. I bead! And we both have good times with Abby.

I am a lucky person!