You still there?

My parents celebrated an anniversary recently. Sixty-four years of marriage. A small Catholic ceremony in a small church—just a year after they met—on a small street where proximity sometimes rearranges the future.

Dad had been seeing another young woman and invited her for a big night out: the premiere of West Side Story at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. It’s enough to make a farm boy from North Dakota feel like he’s starring in his own musical. But she canceled. (If this were a movie, that’s the moment the soundtrack would go plink—fate clearing its throat.)

The owner of the boarding house where he lived suggested he ask the girl next door. Literally next door.

Mom had just moved in with her Aunt Crystal—not an actual aunt, but my grandmother’s best friend and the woman my mom was named after.

He asked. She said yes. And then there they were. My 18-year-old mom in a wedding dress that highlighted her 18-inch waist, and my dad in his pompadour leaning in for a kiss—seemingly unaware of his own casual handsomeness.

Once, on their anniversary, I found myself sharing a one-room cabin in Yellowstone with my parents. I was in high school but knew anniversaries were a couple thing, not a couple-and-their-kid thing. “I’ll disappear for a while,” I offered. “Go for a long hike. Hang out at the lodge.”

Mom laughed and gave Dad’s hand a squeeze. “Oh, Honey, we’ve been married a long time. You can just walk around the cabin.”

My parents have only ever shared one regret about our family: that they didn’t have more kids.

They were good at kids. Not just their own. I’ve stopped being surprised when someone I’m just meeting casually refers to my parents as Mom and Dad — only to learn that, in some gentle, unassuming way, my parents had parented them too.

They were also good at bickering, though they’ve largely lost their knack for it over the years. These days they’re more like an extension of each other – sometimes literally. When one is out of sight, the other scans the room for them.

Whether it’s Mom in my passenger seat or Dad, one of them inevitably reaches into the back seat, a silent check-in.

You still there?

If a memory disappears for one, the other colors in the blank spot. Together, they reconstruct a perfectly rational world.

We’ve started a little ritual. After Dad shaves, I ask Mom to inspect the work. Partly because it seems important that he remember why he shaves: Mom has never liked kissing facial hair. If it were up to him, he’d grow a beard.

But mostly because I enjoy the theater of it. Mom gamely stops whatever she’s doing and walks over to the freshly shaven Dad. She places both hands on his face and then neck, conducting a careful inspection.

And every single time, something shifts.

A soft smile appears. Her whole face seems to remember something.

Not a shave.

Something else.

Maybe every version of him she’s ever loved.

Cue music.

Eventually she remembers the assignment and delivers her verdict.

I never tire of it.

My dad had a minor stroke a little over a week ago.

Dad—who has never really had anything seriously wrong with his farm-bred body—is, for the first time, in a hospital bed.

Mom gently strokes his face with both hands and kisses him.

Shaved or not.

Later, without thinking, he reaches for her in the chair next to his bed.

Sixty-four years later, they’re still checking:

You still there?