My Parents Got Married 54 Years Ago
- Neil Parekh
- Nov 26
- 3 min read
My parents got married on this day, November 26, 1971 (54 years ago).
I'm thankful for a lot of things, including old pictures and technology that helps me find recent pictures (with specific people) quickly.
I've been talking to my Mom lately about the early years including their time in India together and what their experiences were like when they came to the U.S.Â
My grandfather had Parkinson's Disease. The rest of the family wanted him to come here for medical treatment.
He would only do so if my dad came with him.
They lived in NJ with family for a while, then moved to Riverside Drive in Manhattan.
Their early years weren't easy. But, like a lot of immigrants, they figured out a way to make it work.
This picture is from a family get-together in the house I grew up. It was ostensibly a surprise birthday party for me.
Although my dad was on the Heart Transplant list, he was generally ok.
In October of 2008 he went into the hospital and for the last year of his life, most of my visits home were visiting him in the hospital. I don't know if I even have pictures of the four of us at that time. (And yes, I wish I had a picture of the four of us looking at the camera where Amy’s eyes are open.) My dad passed away in October of 2009.
It’s incredible how well my Mom has managed things over the past sixteen years. It couldn't have been easy. Even her friends and in-laws have been impressed, expressing doubt that they would have handled being alone as well as she has. (I live in DC and my sister lives in Seattle. We do what we can, but we are lucky that she has great neighbors, family and friends close by.)
This is a current picture of our family, fifty-four years after my parents got married.
"Our" family now includes Pam and Rajiv, and Emily and Sanjay. We don't get together as often as we'd like. My Mom is still living in Hastings-on-Hudson, but spends her winters in Florida. Amy lives outside Seattle, Washington (they moved there a few years after we moved away). I live outside Washington, D.C.
My parents’ story didn't start with the wedding, of course. And, with me and Amy starting our own families, their story will continue for many years to come.
Bonus: ADHD at Play
This is the mind of someone with ADHD. (I was diagnosed with ADHD last year, at the age of 51). I knew my parents' anniversary was coming up. I knew I had this first picture and that I wanted to post it. I couldn't stop there, however. My mind then went to "Find a picture of all four of us" and "Find the most recent picture of at least three of us."
I know there is a picture somewhere of the civil ceremony (I believe Suresh Parekh, one of my dad's brothers and Malini Parekh, my aunt) are in this picture. I've seen it somewhere. I might have it or maybe someone posted it once. Or, maybe it's in a long-forgotten album.Â
My ADHD brain is thankfully being held at bay. I know in previous years, I would have gotten the idea in my head that I needed to include that picture, or use that as the main picture. I would have searched high and low. I would have looked through shoeboxes, hard copy albums, various folders on my computer and several external hard drives. I would have been frustrated either with not finding the picture or with how much time I spent looking for the picture even if I found it.
If only ALL of my pictures (in boxes, in various computer folders, and photo albums) were magically uploaded with meta data, filenames, ID tags, etc...all of this would be so much easier. One day. One day...
N.B. I spent almost three hours on finding the photos, editing them, formatting them, writing the blog post, putting it on my website and posting to social media. If I hadn't done it, I would have kicked myself for not doing it. Was there other work I was hoping to get done this morning? Yes. Did I get joy out of doing this and will I get joy after I post it? Yes. Such is life...