You May Never Know How You Have Touched Someone's Life

Tomorrow is our wedding anniversary!

Pin for later

See how I set up this sunset table for 2 HERE

46 years ago, Mr. Redoux and I got married at 7:00 on a Saturday evening.

And we got up and moved from Southern California to Northern California at 7:00 the next morning.

(We had already rented a tiny house on a ranch and Mr. Redoux had loaded up all our belongings in a U-Haul and moved it all up there a few weeks before. He basically just unloaded all our furniture and pots and pans and pillows and towels and tools and packed them into the front storage area of our house.)

So the morning after our wedding, we went over to my Dad’s house to say goodbye. I gave him a hug.

And I cried…

Then we went to my mom’s house. First, we got my cat. Now, if you’ve ever traveled with a cat then you probably know that they don’t really like riding in the car, so my mom had gotten a tranquilizer from the vet and given it to Miss Kitty and she was in her little carrier all ready to go. So into the car went a very relaxed, drugged-up Miss Kitty.

Then I hugged my mom goodbye. And I hugged her. And then I hugged her again.

And then I cried…

And cried…

And cried.

(You see, I had lived in my own apartment for 2 years, but I had always lived in the same town as my family. And even though I was looking forward to my new life adventure in a totally new town, I knew I was going to really miss my family. And we only knew 3 people in Northern California!)

(See a tribute to my mom HERE.)

Pin for later

Then off we drove, down the hill from my mom’s house and out toward the highway on our 500-mile road trip.

And I cried.

And guess what??

Miss Kitty must’ve been really sad too

because she started crying as soon as we drove out of the driveway!

Actually, it was more like howling than crying…

And so there we were,

the three of us —

the groom driving diligently and patiently,

in the pouring rain,

with his new bride next to him choking back tears

and a cat in a crate howling incessantly in the back seat

for 8 hours…

When we were about 40 miles from our destination,

Mr. Redoux suggests that we get a motel for the night.

‘It’s 9 o’clock, it’s pouring rain, the house is going to be dark and empty and cold

and I don’t even know where the bed is’.

But I insisted I wanted to spend our first night in our little house.

Pin for later

So we decided we were going to just have to go through all our stuff, at 10:00 at night, dig out the bed, find some sheets and a blanket and anything else we can find to get through the night.

But when we finally pull up to our new home,

there’s a glow coming from the inside…

What??

We unlocked the door and walked into the little living room…

and were amazed!

There was a fire in the fireplace.

Two armchairs were set up in front of the fire

with a bucket of champagne on a little table between them.

And in the corner of the room —

our warm, comfy, cozy bed!

And on the floor were all of our wedding gifts just waiting to be opened.

Pin for later

Remember the only 3 people we knew in our new town?

They had done this!

One of them was the best man at our wedding and he had driven our other car back with all of our wedding gifts and dropped them off.

And the other 2 were new friends we had just met

who thought it would be nice to set up a room for us.

So we sat together in front of the fire

and drank champagne

and opened our gifts

and completely enjoyed a night

that turned into one of our fondest memories.

Oh, and Miss Kitty? She finally passed out on the bed…

Needless to say, those two people ended up being our dearest friends for many years.

I remember telling her decades later

how special they had made our first night in town some 30 years before

and she kind of looked at me with a blank stare.

I actually had to remind her about how they had set up the front room in our first house for us

with a fire and a bed and champagne…

And she hadn’t even remembered it!

Pin for later

So it just goes to show you

that something nice you do for someone else

might not be that big of a deal to you

but to the person you do it for —

it could be a memory they will cherish forever.

Read HERE for more about the first years of our life in NorCal.