By FRED KRONER
There are days that are difficult to get through, and they have nothing to do with work or other obligations.
They can be days that were once associated with happy memories.
For me, that day is June 3. It came around again last week.
It was my parents’ wedding anniversary.
I needed help remembering dates – other than my birthday and Christmas – in my younger years and a popular song of that era provided the perfect mnemonic device.
The first six words of a popular Bobbie Gentry song (Ode to Billie Joe) were, “It was the third of June.”
In my parents’ 25th anniversary year, I was still a teen-ager and wasn’t into celebrating or even acknowledging milestones of others.
Fifteen years later, my mindset was much different.
I brought up the subject of having a celebration for No. 40 when we got together in January of 1985.
“You don’t need to do anything,” my mother said, almost immediately.
I reminded her of how we used to have family reunions almost every summer, the Hillman-Winegard reunion, and how we all looked forward to these gatherings.
At the time, most of my mother’s siblings – and their spouses – were still living.
“Your anniversary wouldn’t have to be the focus,” I said. “We can call it a reunion and invite all of the relatives.”
I remember saying that if she would give me the addresses, I would take care of all the details and would arrange for a location so she wouldn’t need to clean the house.
“I don’t think so,” she said. “Many people would feel like they need to get us something, and we don’t need anything.”
One thing that was consistent with my parents is that when their minds were made up, no amount of words or pleas would change them.
So, of course, there was no celebration on June 3, 1985. I spent part of the day with them as did their only grandson, Devin, who had just turned 3.
There would be no future opportunities to acknowledge their anniversary. Two months and five days after their 40th anniversary, my mother died.
Her breast cancer had returned with a vengeance and had inundated her lymph nodes. We didn’t learn that information until after her death.
I met with her doctor after the autopsy report was completed.
“She had to have known,” he said.
Typically, she not only hadn’t complained, but also didn’t even acknowledge to anyone in the family that anything might be amiss.
That’s when it began to make sense to me.
Perhaps the reason for her insistence of not having a get-together for their anniversary is that she knew in her heart what was going on and didn’t want something on the calendar that she might be too sick to attend.
I missed the most obvious sign. Ninety-nine percent of the time, it was my mother who would respond with a “we’ll see,” to such queries while my father would be the one to put the kibosh on whatever idea was being presented.
Only when I reflected after the fact did I realize that my father hadn’t even engaged in the conversation about a possible anniversary celebration.
Why does it even matter decades later, after what would have been their 77th anniversary passed last week?
I recognize that a newspaper clipping announcing their milestone would have been a fitting time for a tribute and a few feel-good moments at a time when I now suspect those were in short supply.
You know what they say about hindsight. And, I know now what I should have done, which is why I believe every June 3 is a tough day for me to get through.
