My wife finally got around to going through her late Mom's photo albums. [View all]

The photos are circulating between the sisters in the order of birth, my wife being second. We're supposed to select the ones we want and pass them on to the next sister. My wife, considerately, isn't taking many she believes her younger sisters would want.

The photos go back to the very early 20th century and even a few from the 19th century. We're not entirely sure who all these people were, but its fun to speculate from the family stories we know. They say you die twice, once physically, and then when no one remembers who you were.

What is striking to me is that my mother-in-law had quite a few pictures of my wife and I from the period before we married and some from the early years of our marriage. This is somewhat surprising since I don't think my mother-in-law particularly liked me at the time, although we worked out our problems eventually.

I guess I looked slightly less dumpy back then, but damn! I'd forgotten how drop dead gorgeous my wife was physically. (She's still drop dead gorgeous, but in a different way.) I do remember all the men hitting on her, but she stuck with me somehow. I was very lucky.

There's one of us standing on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon - a stranger must have taken it for us - during our trip moving out to California that just blows my mind. I sure looked happy, and I sure know why.

I recall hearing from a colleague that the guys who worked for me at one of the jobs out in California that I held early in my marriage asked him what the hell a woman that beautiful was doing with the likes of me. I kind of laughed it off back then, but I see what they were wondering about.

I don't think I have an answer.

We've been together 40 years, and I still don't have an answer.

Of course, her looks have very little to do with who she is. It is the latter, who she is, that matters in the end.