60 years of love

This was one of my earlier pieces, but to this day this 60th wedding anniversary collage is one of my favorites. My friend tells the story of his grandparents so well, and the following are his words.

What does love look like? You could ask a thousand people that question and get a thousand unique and beautiful answers. In my life, the way my grandparents Paul and Marion Wolff looked at each other became a true definition for the word love. They taught me many of life's most important lessons growing up, but the most important thing I learned from them was what love looks like.

A love so strong that anyone involved in their lives could see it, that's one of the things it takes to achieve a 50 year wedding anniversary. I remember the smiles on their faces like it was yesterday. Even the most cynical of person would have felt their love that day. A party with all their friends and family was thrown, and it was a true celebration of their 50 years as one.

Ten years later my grandparents were still in love, and still married, but their 60th anniversary was much less jovial due to their diminishing health. Paul was no longer lucid due to a series of strokes during open heart surgery, and Marion had a hard time breathing without the assistance of oxygen. By this point in my life I was old enough to afford a gift for them, and I wanted to give them what they had given all of us for their entire lives, a picture of love.