Sometimes people talk about what they learned in Sunday School decades earlier. I'm sure I learned something in Sunday School but I can't point to specifics of that learning. This is shared by way of illustration of the idea that much of what I know, my knowledge base, I cannot trace to it's source. Where did I learn it? When did I learn it? Yes, of course there are those things, those bits of knowledge, the source of which can be clearly identified.
I do know how to set a table for guests and I know where I learned it. During our marriage we did much entertaining. Joanne was in the lead, she did the cooking, except for those times when I'd do something on the grill. While she was busy cooking I'd often set the table, initially under her direction, but soon I had mastered the lesson. The table I set last night would have been to her standards and I think she'd be both pleased and surprised that I did it for the six guests who came for dinner.
Much of what I know, and who I am, is a credit to Joanne. She had a powerful influence on me during our fifty-five years of relationship. There are specifics, like setting a table, I learned from her. Yet, much of her influence has become so integrated into who I am I don't recognize that it came from her. Setting that guest table was an exercise that reminded me how much I owe her, filling me with gratitude for her, and our life together, What a gift she was and continues to be in my life.
Takk for alt,
Al
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