A MILESTONE MOMENT

This is the hubby and me on our wedding day. Aren’t we just the cutest! Back then I was just a baby about to be thrust into the real world and I didn’t have a clue what was about to hit me. It was a learning experience that didn’t come with a handbook and all my training was literally on the job.

Marriage has been a roller coaster of extreme highs and even lower lows but for all it’s worth we have endured. I will not lie. It has not been an easy feat to accomplish and he and I both will readily admit to moments of wanting to toss up our hands in sheer frustration and call it quits. I don’t know that I could ever explain why we didn’t ‘cause love surely didn’t have a thing to do with it and we have much love for each other.

I am a true believer in marriage. I never entered into the relationship thinking that I would end it if the going got tough. In an age where divorce rates have skyrocketed I cannot understand the idea of a disposable relationship. My parents have been married almost fifty years. My husband’s parents had celebrated almost sixty years together before my father-in-law’s death. They were our role models and we have always imagined ourselves following in their footsteps even when one or the other of us had had enough. He and I are now approaching a season of milestones. Each and every time I think about it I find the thought somewhat overwhelming. I can’t imagine what it took for all the stars to line up just so to make any of this possible.

We will celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary in October. Just weeks afterward we will remember the one-year anniversary of our son’s passing. Shortly after the New Year, there will be one milestone birthday after another, starting with my own, then my baby boy’s 18th. Not long after that the hubby will glide toward 60. (He’s MUCH older than I am and my milestone is no where near 60! Read my book A Love For All Time if you want to figure it out but as far as the official record goes, I’m only 29!)

The spring will find us celebrating our youngest child’s high school graduation, my best friend’s wedding, and the birth of a new grandchild. As I fathom all that lies ahead for us I feel extremely blessed. No one truly believed our journey together would succeed but it did and I am thankful.

I could never deny my husband’s love for me. He has loved me for so long and so deeply that there have been times that it has been frightening and actually painful. It has been all consuming, over-whelming, and emotionally sustaining in one breath and draining in the next. My husband afforded me the opportunity to write full-time. To maneuver my way toward publication without any distractions. He sacrificed his own wants and needs to give me mine. I admit that I don’t know if I would have done the same thing had the tables been reversed. I like to think that I would have been as selfless had he asked of me what I demanded of him, but truth be told I’m not so sure.

With our milestones comes much change. For the first time in our lifetime together we will have no children in our home, no daily responsibilities of family and parenthood. We will be alone with each other, and we have never had that in all of our history together. The prospect is both exciting and scary. I admit to wondering if we can endure. If the vast difference in our ages, our opposite wills, and just the wealth of our history will continue to beat the odds and challenges of marriage. Someone asked if I could see the hubby accepting all the changes that I see for myself, and for him, in the future. I had to take a moment to give that some thought and right now I can only say that time will tell. The stars may very well decide to realign themselves and send us spinning out of control and then again, they may continue to dance in our favor and we will both, individually and together, be just fine.