He had completed the Accounting course. Then, his desire to be a doctor, to do something else for his fellow man, led him to go to Medical School.

And it was there that, one day, he saw a young brunette who caught his eyes. She seemed to be from the Northeast, and had a knack of Japanese.

Finally, someone who made his heart beat differently.

Time was passing. He discovered her name, spoke to her colleagues, that was, slowly but surely.

In July 1970, he made what he considered his most important acquisition: a pair of wedding rings. Also a refrigerator, already thinking about the near future.

And on that same year, before she even graduated, they got married. That allowed her to boast the surname of married when she conquered the diploma.

Those were wonderful years. The children came, the sons and daughters-in-law and grandchildren were added.

The joys were succeeding. Every once in a while, a surprise, a little fright. A  cardiac surgery, a healthy problem ahead.

When 2018 was almost about to say goodbye, the unexpected happened.

The couple traveled to another state, to the house of one of their children, to celebrate the first birthday of another granddaughter.

That was when Laertes realized that he had been married for fifty years. Half a century.

What an amazing thing. How time had passed. It seemed to him that yesterday he was still proposing to Celia. And, now, they were grandparents.

He thought he needed to take an attitude. Fifty years is a lot of time. He had a brilliant idea. Without telling nothing to anyone, he went to buy a pair of wedding rings, had their names engraved.

Then, in the middle of the girl´s birthday party, in the presence of the family members, friends, acquaintances, he did the unexpected.

Sitting one in front of another, loud and clear, he asked his wife:

Celia, will you marry me?

She was surprised. She looked at her children, grandchildren, everyone who had stopped on the room to contemplate the scene.

It was a few seconds of an almost embarrassing silence. His heart seemed to jump out of the chest.

Finally, she smiled and extended her left hand. And, with the same nervousness of fifty years ago, Laertes put a shining gold wedding ring on her finger.

She repeated his gesture, laughing, happy. A smile, as he said, never seem so brightly.

And, at the applause of everybody, they kissed.

That was how they got married for the second time.

*    *    *

In times when relationships have become swift, undoing in the morning what was promised on the day before, contemplating a marriage of half a century is touching.

Touching for being a rich, full life, a life built and grounded within time.

A life of so many fruits. A family. What a beautiful example to follow.

And their children follow them, one by one, because for each one of them, they are equally added years of consortium with the multiplication of children.

This is called love. Love that does not cool down because some arabesques are adorning each other´s face. Or because the spouse has some health problems.

Or because the step has become slower or the prodigious memory paled.

Love. Sublime love, which keeps the ties tight and flourishes, over the years.

Spiritist Moment Team, with facts
from the life of the couple Celia and Laercio Furlan.
Octobre, 29.2019.