How to sustain love

This would be the name of the experiment I am currently participating in, no final report yet. I'm always curious how people stay together or have life-long relationships with people other than blood relatives. I also wonder how to make it so the final words people say about me are more than "She was here". I guess you have to live life to find that answer.

My pondering was brought about by a message sent to me from Tom Hargrove regarding his late wife, Susan. I wanted to share it with you all. I am glad to have insight into the lives of two exceptional people.
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From Thomas Hargrove:

Friends,

I want to share the epitaph for the grave marker of Susan Hargrove. I drafted the words, but Miles, Geddie, and Emily all made inputs.

Susan was cremated. A third of her ashes were buried at the Hargrove Family Cemetery, established in a Hargrove cotton field 13 miles west of Rotan, Texas. That's where this grave marker is being placed. The marker is flat (horizontal), of "Texas pink" granite (like the Texas state capitol in Austin), with a clear view of a lot of cotton and ranch land, and the famous (in West Texas lore) Double Mountains standing clearly in the distance.

Then we held a special celebration of her life on Nov. 8, her birthday, at Lucas Terraces, our home in Galveston that she loved, and where she died. Friends and family told "Susan stories," then spread another third of the ashes in the yard. We had a catered Texas barbecue.

Most of Susan's other ashes were spread on the graves of her father, mother, and brother in Granbury, Texas.

Susan and I met at age 12 in junior high at Rotan, Texas. We married in 1967 when I was in graduate school at Iowa State University. Then came the Vietnam War, then back to Iowa State. We later had a wonderful life and great adventures at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines, plus two sons (and a lot of dogs and cats) to raise. Then a good life in Colombia that ended tragically...and changed our lives forever...Susan's brave and strong actions--and those of our sons and some close friends--obviously saved my life.
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I appreciate Tom for sharing this with me. I found it to be very touching and inspiring.

Please note that the photo is an etching of Susan's headstone. Click on it for a magnified view of her epitaph.