All you need is love
All you need is love
All you need is love, love
Love is all you need – Paul Mccartney / John Lennon

I have written a lot, over the years, in response to the February 4 celebrations Rebekah and I always take time to enjoy.

February 4 is important to us because it is all about remembering and celebrating our first date back in 1977. Rebekah and I had met a handful of times by then, gradually becoming aware of one another, but on this particular day – a Friday – she called the house where I lived to invite me out.

So I walked over to her dorm to pick her up and, along with some of her friends, we went to the basketball game together. Then I walked her back to her dorm after the game.

And the rest, as they say, is history…. But this has been such a beautiful history and such an amazing forty-nine years in part because we never let a February 4 go by without being consciously and actively thankful. Same goes for any and every date on the calendar we take the time and make the effort to celebrate.

Because you don’t get to a number like forty-nine (and forty-nine is seven times seven which – given the understanding of “seven” as the perfect number – is equal to perfection multiplied by perfection) without being intentional and purposeful when it comes to both recognition and celebration.

The sub-title of my new book is “One Million Decisions, a Memoir.” Well about five-hundred thousand of those decisions have been and continue to be the ongoing act of thoughtful commitment that is love.

I firmly believe that we must choose one-another often several times a day. Choosing to be kind, choosing to be generous, choosing to be patient, choosing to be gracious, choosing to be attentive to the relationship – and so much more.

This is why – and I have said this before – Rebekah and I may have fallen in love back in the spring of 1977, but we have been standing in love ever since.

Forty-nine years and so very much to look forward to. In love – and because of love – DEREK