Vance's closer, at least in those days, was "When Jimmy Falls in Love." A bright, upbeat tune, it tells the story of a friend who has disappeared from social life due to new, unbridled love. As we walked into the soft spring evening all those years ago, Vance's voice and lilting la la's resonated in our just-now rediscovered young souls only to revisit our minds time and again over the ensuing days.

It was a surprise then to hear Vance's bookend song, "If You See James", in a concert I produced just a few years ago. For all of Jimmy's unbridled joy in the first song, the realities of love-lost were painfully displayed on this moody, heart-rending tune. What happened?

They say that over 50% of marriages now end in divorce. An entire generation of children has grown up with only one parent or maybe two part part-time parents. My own son has had to endure the break up of my first marriage to his mother. He has lived with his mother for most of his life and I have missed a million moments I'd dreamed I would see. Such is the fallout of the break up of a nuclear family.

I suppose it's no one's fault, but lawyers will always try to tell us something different. We enter into these choices hoping we've made the right one. Surely, we don't hope to fail! Still, we can only make decisions based on the information we have at the time and the emotional prism we have to view them through. Retrospect is always clearer, but retrospect can be analogous to corrective lens too.

Amazingly, my son has asked few questions over these years. He is more Buddha-like than me-in the moment. There are things I wish I could tell him, things that might help him avoid the mistakes I made, things that might explain my own choices, but these are things I want for me. He may not even need them. Time will tell. He'll tell me what he needs when he needs it. I hope on that day, I hear the question…

As I approach the 18th anniversary of my second marriage though, I'm pleased to have made a better choice the second time around. I'm thankful that I've grown enough to work through the problems and know that love evolves (despite fundamental Christians' objection) and matures. Mostly, I'm grateful to have found a life partner who can talk about things great and small, who forgives me my many faults, who greets each day with a smile, and believe it or not still thinks I'm hilarious.

Happy early anniversary, Nancy! You are a pearl beyond compare! May our days be full of love, both new and old. Love, Rich