Today we weren’t supposed to be here. Home. Not today anyway.

Fifteen Years ago, we said I Do and somehow, it’s flown by. But in the same breath, I’ll state that it’s been chuck FULL of adventure after adventure. The Good, Bad, Better, and Worse. When I was younger, I used to love to read Love Stories in magazines, or the secrets from life-long couples’ relationships entitled: Secrets to a Happy Marriage after Sixty Years. Or something to that affect… Each one of them seemed to have the same tone and somehow, they all shared the same back-story. No matter the magazine, book, newspaper, interview, or movie I’d seen of stories like this, all of them shared a common denominator: Pain. Every love story spoke to memory after memory of the lowest of lows the walked through during their marriage and how they got through it. While there were also, always, so many highs to their life-long love, it was how they made it through the toughest of times, the darkest of valleys, and how they endured their walks through sorrow and disappointment that held them together.

In only fifteen short years, this is our story too. And already. Today, we were supposed to be celebrating in another place. On a trip I’d planned for us for just the occasion. But we had to cancel. Life. It happens. Yet, I wouldn’t change this life with you for anything. Because in fifteen years, but in what really feels like fifteen weeks maybe, we have had immense JOY too! Here and elsewhere. Both pain and joy have followed us, but we’ve learned from the pain and danced in the joy.

I spend so much time each night writing to our son, Eli, and reflecting on our day together. But I so often do the same with you. It’s hard to even verbalize all the things I love, adore, and admire about you, but…  Maybe fifteen things will suffice…

(more…)