Manny Kagan

Today is The Day

“Marriage is a life journey. It is good to travel together with the person you love.”

On August 8^th, 1967—two young people got married. They were both 20 years young. 47 years later, they are not only together, but are still deeply in love with one another. Their life together was never an easy affair—with two emigrations alongside an entourage of two children, and a mother. Finally after leaving every material possession behind, they eventually settled in San Francisco.

Following years of studying, fulfilling their educational dreams and making a living doing menial work, both of them started a mortgage company. Now 29 years later, their company Pacific Bay Financial Corporation, is still in business employing many of the same people who have been with the company for over 20 years. Those were not easy years and the mortgage business had and still has many challenges.

But as the saying goes, “What will not kill us, will make us stronger.”

In case you haven’t guessed it, I am writing about my beautiful wife Elfa, and your humble servant (Yes, throughout the years I’ve learned how to be more humble.)

Last year, I started writing a book, “Marriage Solutions For Smart People”, but I decided to stop my project. I realized that our personal experience is very difficult to export and to teach. Nevertheless, if I could pinpoint one quality in a successful relationship (not only in marriage), it is to CARE, and yes, of course to LOVE.

However, these two don’t always go together.

Life is all about sharing. Despite our biological, physical, genetic, geographical, religious, educational, spiritual, even political differences, we can be attractive to one another, but only to an extent. If you start a relationship with the common objective to create and build a family and to LEARN how to do it (How many years did it take you to learn how to do whatever you do to make a living?), many years later you might still be together while enjoying the results of your life’s journey.

Since my prescriptions don’t always work, I will finish with a story about a couple who were celebrating their 50^th wedding anniversary. A lot of friends and relatives gathered together for this remarkable event. One of the guests—a family attorney noticed that the husband was sitting alone not looking happy.

“What is wrong?” the attorney asked the husband.

“Do you remember 25 years ago, I told you that I wanted to kill my wife, and you told me that I will get 25 years for murder?”, the husband asked. “Well, today I would be a free man!”

P.S.

For our 47^th anniversary, we celebrated in Carmel-by-the-Sea. We’ve been here many times, and it is always enjoyable to come back, stroll the streets, visit stores and galleries, and just relax together and smell the roses—which I photograph all the time.

Please enjoy some of my images. You can see more of my flowers in our office, and of course on Twitter and Facebook. You can find more stories about our personal life in my book, “The Mortgage Game: The 5 C’s and How to Connect Them”.

Manny & Elfa ~

anniversary