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Reading through the golden wedding jubilee story in the June 17 issue of Catholic New York brought to mind the vows we all declare, on our marriage day, part of them being "in sickness and in health."
This part of our vows was brought home to me forcefully on the morning of July 7, 2016, when my wife suffered a massive stroke to the left side of her body.
Our 50th wedding anniversary on May 25, 2018 was celebrated not at Mass, but in a nursing home. We have now been married 53 years, and we currently reside in a mother-daughter residence. Although we do have an aide during the day, I take over at night, dressing and putting my wife into bed. In the early morning, before our aide arrives, I assist her out of bed into a wheelchair, into the bathroom, dressing her and then preparing her breakfast.
All of this brings back the words “in sickness and in health” that many of us take for granted. I do this because it is my calling, remembering the vows we took so very long ago
