Wedding Toast to Jonathan Deng and Linsey Lee

June 3, 2017, Eagles Mere, Pennsylvania

Life has taught me this:  Love begins as an emotion compounded with lust.  But, if it’s real, it can grow into a decision to place another’s happiness above one’s own.  Marriage is how one affirms such a decision.

Caring for someone else even more than you care for yourself makes you vulnerable, of course.  It takes two to form a couple, two to finesse the inevitable friction so that affection endures, and two to sustain love.  But marriage can be a fortress for unique intimacy and trust between wedded souls.

Margaret’s and my marriage nearly twenty-four years ago was belated and the result of love at second sight.  But it was and is a daily reminder that, with mutual commitment, a man and a woman can cheer and comfort each other all the years of their lives.

Jonathan, my grandson, and Linsey, my granddaughter-in-law, this is what Margaret and I wish for you both.