At the dinner party celebrating the 50th wedding anniversary of Anne and Doug Skeates, someone called out: “What’s the secret, Anne? How did you two do it?”

Anne did not stand and make a long speech about patience and acceptance. She did not talk all that rubbish about never going to bed angry or dish us out any syrupy nonsense about how living with Doug made it easy. No. She called out:

You make up your mind about it and you just get on with it!”

Emphatically.

The Skeates have had an interesting 50 years. They have lived abroad and travelled extensively. They have been involved with their communities, wherever they were. They have not shied away from knowing the people who were native to where they were visitors. They had five children.

They have had good times and bad; they have faced challenges; they have been wise and have made mistakes.

Just like all of us. However, Anne Skeates has a particular talent for facing the morning. When her emotional weather

stormy, she understands how long to deal with it and when to finally dress in something colourful, a bright pair of earrings and “get on with it.”

Whenever in their lives there were difficulties, she and Doug approached them head on and knew that living is more important than the difficulties bogging down the moment.

It is a remarkable talent and one that should be taught at school. To remember what is important and stick with it. Today presents problems but tomorrow will inevitably come and how one lives that tomorrow in spite of the problems is to the point.

Priorities: your family at any cost; your loyalties to your friends and your understanding of how important they are to you; your outreach to the greater community around you.

Marriage, possibly the most difficult of relationships for the day-to-day demands it makes on both partners, can only succeed with an intense sense of loyalty on both sides. Yet, it is not only marriage – that life-long conversation, that long-term cohabitation with a best friend – that requires such loyalty. And the Skeates know this as well.

There was an open house at the Skeates’ home last Sunday, the day of their anniversary. Toward the end of it, we gathered together in their living room to see what their children were presenting them and to toast them, as a group. To toast them as giving and remarkable people. People who have always done everything they could by way of support and love for those of us who have touched their lives.

There too, Anne made a truly profound remark.

She told us: “It is you who are special,” holding her hands out towards us all in a sweeping arc. “You sustain us with your friendship and love. You are the ones who are special – what you give us makes us who we are.”

What we give others, what they give us, makes all of us who we are. Important words and grand ideas. Worth remembering and cherishing.

I knew a couple in the U.K., Myra and Sydney Heaven. Theirs was the only perfect marriage I ever encountered. The secret to their success was how well each understood the other’s value. Their relationship was based on profound mutual respect. They both knew that they were who they were, in part, because of their being together.

It was always wonderful to be with them and listen to them speak about one another, with such tenderness and enthusiasm, with such awe of the other`s talents.

They were not young when they met. Myra was an actress and Sydney was a university professor. He went with a friend to the theatre where Myra was starring in the performance and realised on the spot why he had not yet married anyone else.

He went back stage to meet her, with an invitation to dinner and that was that. They were so very different from each other except for what was important: their deep sense of one another`s worth.

Any relationship, intimate or casual, matters and influences us to a greater or lesser extent, as we are an influence in return. We never know how much or maybe even in what way we affect others but there is power in the mere presence of one human being in another`s life.

This power is never to be abused and we should live our lives ready to serve and prepared to accept the service of people that we meet – those we keep close to us and those that “pass in the night, “ as they say. Life should be lived with benevolence.

Well, it is all a bit like the Green movement, demanding that we recycle and turn our lights all off at 8:30 one night of the year, while standing hopelessly by as industry continues to ruin the earth.

So should we each do our part to better the lives of others in small or large or any way we can. Like the Green campaign, we are continuously encouraged to “pass it on” and so forth, while nations make endless wars on each other.

Yet and yet. Our little Green contributions do make a difference to the whole philosophy of stewardship of the earth. The best revolutions have always come from the grassroots up.

Maybe, the same will happen if there is enough grassroots benevolence too. What we do unto others and what they do unto us, is who we are.