"Grow old along with me . . ."

I have read and studied some about Robert and Elizabeth Browning. I'm sure the truth lies somewhere in the middle, but their love story is indeed a fascinating one.

I had the Browning quote on our Christmas cards this year, but I was off - I quoted "Grow old with me" and it's "Grow old along with me." Sister Gibson, the widow of Harry's mission president in Bolivia, was still touched by it - and actually I have had quite a response from many folks about the old wedding photo of us with the Browning quote beneath it. Looks like I called that one right!

At any rate, she wrote a letter to us including a piece she had written right after her husband died. It was called "The Best is Yet to Be." It was very moving. She wrote, "These experiences have given me a different understanding of Browning's words Death is 'the last of life, for which the first (birth) was made,' but death is more than dying. It is an induction into what Browning terms an 'adventure brave and new,' that which the scriptures call eternal life. At the end of the essay she wrote, "I am confident that we will be together again for age approved the most important choice of my youth. (Her reference to how she met and fell in love with her husband.) Love is eternal as well as infinite. Yes, the best is yet to be!"

It was a crazy, hectic day - the women's conference is tomorrow and the attendant frenzy was wearing me down. So it was nice to stop and reflect on a positive, happy thought.

I will give a report tomorrow on how the day goes.

Or I may just collapse!