Today, my attention is on weddings, past and future. My 39th wedding anniversary is tomorrow. And my daughter got engaged Sunday night.
Since our wedding in 1987, my husband and I have survived ten presidential elections, ten moves, eight dogs (three of which are still with us), twelve-ish cars, the purchase of three houses, two hurricanes, one blizzard, three refrigerators, and three washers and dryers.
When we were first married, I would take twenty dollars from his wallet for lunch money and forget to tell him. He then would enter the grocery store to buy something and not have enough money. The time I remember him getting particularly upset was the day he made it to the cashier with about twelve items, found out he didn’t have enough money, and had about five fellow employees in the line with him offer him money to help out. We had sandwiches that night. (That was before debit cards and ATM’s were widely available, let alone ideas like Apple Pay. You had money in your wallet to pay, or you did without.)
He taught me how to change a tire that first year of marriage, as well. To be sure I could do it, he stood to the side and watched while I took a tire off the car and put it back on again. A different five employees came up to him the next day at work wanting to know why he wasn't changing the tire instead of me.
Then there was the time I agreed to let him paint our bedroom mauve. Why? We were crate training dog #2, who was still a puppy, and I was out of town visiting my grandparents with my mother. My sister stopped by to visit him while I was gone, so he took her out for supper.
Rather than crate dog #2 the way she was supposed to be crated when we weren’t home, he decided to leave her out while he was gone. In the intervening sixty minutes between Mark’s leaving and returning to the house, dog #2 got anxious and ate the recliner arm down to the wooden center. The recliner had belonged to his grandfather. My sister, who I thought loved me, looked at the chair, Mark and the dog, and announced to him, “Do what you need to do.” Then she walked outside to give him privacy. When Mark and I discussed the situation later that night, I felt it greatly increased dog #2’s chances of survival to agree to the mauve.
The first time I fixed supper for us after we returned to the apartment from our honeymoon was eye-opening for both of us. I came from a household of four women, my mom, myself and my two sisters. At my house, mac and cheese and a salad was a perfectly acceptable meal. He came from a meat/starch/vegetable house. That first night, I fixed nachos, with tortilla chips and melted cheese from the oven, topped with shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes, sour cream and mild salsa. It was tasty, if I do say so myself. I went back in the kitchen to clean up. Then about a half hour later I heard, “Hon? Where’s the rest of the meal?”
This man has booked trips to Disneyworld for us just because he knows how the place makes me grin from ear-to-ear and bounce like a five year old, held my head gently through the worst stomach bug you can imagine, and kept me sane and my house clean while I survived five years of law school (I went part-time at the beginning) while working full-time. When I had my stomach blockage/cancer in 2024, he was beside me every step of the way and wild horses couldn’t have drug him away. And he can make me laugh like no-one else can.
I can’t imagine the past 39 years without this man, and I am grateful for however many more years we are gifted. And the best hope I can possibly have for my daughter is that she and my prospective son-in-law have as much fun and friendship during their marriage as we have had in ours.
Have you had any major milestones this past year?
