My dad lived it to age 82 and my mom until age 78. They were married for over 50 years. Till death do they part.
When I was a kid and even until I left home dad was in the US Air Force and a pilot. In the early years he was gone on TDY (temp duty) to far away places on a regular basis. In later life he was in Air Force intelligence and often worked 16 hour days for week at a time. We did not talk a lot back then.
When I moved away from home in search of a better paying job I picked Oklahoma City first because I had 4 grandparents here. I was pretty sure if I went to hang out on Sunday afternoon Grandma would invite me to eat with them. Best meal of the week.
I did spend time at my grandparents house and got a lot of stories from grandpa, and many were about my dad as a boy. When dad retired and my parents moved to OKC as a final move after 16 moves in his career, I got to spend more time talking.
Dad had an interesting career. In 1966 he was stationed as a remote (no family members) in S. Korea. He came home after 6 months for what was supposed to be a month with us. On his second day home the Pueblo was seized, and his commander called, said pack your back and be ready, we will come pick you up in an hour. The Air Force stole my daddy for a year more.
He said the the base there was always at the bottom of the supply chain, so they put in request for projector bulbs even month just to hold briefings. After the Pueblo was seized, they were changed to a top priority, only after the Pentagon level, so every back order for the last 10 years was filled. He said they had the halls lined with projector bulbs. Part of his job was to find places to park all the incoming aircraft, and find tents and places to house all the troops.
He had hundreds of stories, and I just wish I was smart enough to have recorded them. Same regret for my grandfather's stories. My mom's dad was already on the road to dementia by the time I moved here, so no real stories from him just both grandmas.
This is dad in 1967. That base is north of the 38th parallel, and pretty remote. He had some interesting stories about it.