Twenty years ago today, I woke up to find snow blocking our living room window, our pipes to the well house were frozen solid and it was our wedding day. A hurried phone call to a friend and neighbor assured me their shower was working and it was perfectly okay to come over and start getting ready for the big event.
Kathy, my good friend now deceased, not one of the lucky breast cancer survivors was instrumental that day in keeping my nerves calm. Her and Judy Travlos (my maid of honor) concentrated their efforts on making me laugh about all the memories Mike and I had stored up till that day.
We met through a personal ad five years prior, writing for several years before I finally decided to leave Southern California fly to Alaska and meet him for a two-week vacation. The girls had me laughing recalling the first fishing trip with Mike, where on the very first cast (after suffering through a long-winded lecture on how to fish properly) I brought in a 16″ rainbow trout! LOL Mike’s face was priceless. He later was overheard saying, it was because of his tackle that this occurred.
By the time Judy and Kath had done their job, I was laughing so hard I was crying. It was hard to put on the make-up. Then I was walking down the aisle, escorted by Dick Jones and my life started.
Has it been easy? Nothing worthwhile is ever easy. Relationships take work, and even though we were best friends first (which helped immensely) we still have been together night and day for twenty years now. I see places where we take each other for granted. I get angry at his lack of helpfulness when it comes to housework but it is an age thing, as he is 17 years older than me. His mother basically raised him up believing the woman does everything around the house.
I look in the mirror now and at times I see my mother reflected back at me. I am striving to be my own person. To make a difference somehow, to leave the world a kinder place if I can. Will me make it another twenty? I hope so, but his inability to deal effectively with his diabetes, makes that prospect a bit iffy. I guess, taking it one day at a time, laughing daily and loving each other is our recipe for making it this far.
I had to laugh this morning when we woke up. He said “Happy Anniversary Honey, do you realize that we have one cat for every year we have been married?” LOL Did we buy presents for each other? Nope, sure didn’t. Instead,we put the money on the outstanding vet bill. For me, that is true love!
Haven’t seen the cat man in a few days. Still waiting to hear if Ben made any headway in rescuing these cats-
Big congratulations!
Congratulations, hope you have a lovely day.
Anne