Week 2 - Marriage

I write a lot here about the boys, but I don't think I often share about Stephen or myself. So here I go in response to the 52 week challenge as week 2 is "relationships" and I am choosing my marriage.

Steve and I started talking to each other in February of 1998. Our first official date was June 22, 1998, and it wasn't an ordinary date. We lost a mutual friend to tragedy, and had agreed to that night for a date before this tragedy. We went to her wake, and then headed to see a movie. At that wake, I fell for him. As I cried, he placed his arm around my shoulder and kissed my forehead gently. Apparently that was all it took! 

We were "boyfriend and girlfriend" for several years. It was never perfect, and at times it seemed as though it wouldn't work. We were at a place where faith was not a friend to either of us, and we spent our days picking each other apart instead of building each other up. And once again someone else's tragedy changed our course. Steve tells it that on September 11, 2001 he realized that life could end in a moment, and he didn't want to wait to ask me and possibly lose me. So on October 13, 2001 he proposed, at a lighthouse in Jamestown, Rhode Island where we often went to go hiking. 

A year later we were married on November 16, 2002. 

The rest as they say, is History. But I am not so sure you believe that is all there was. Steve and I have faced trials, health issues, family "drama", losing of jobs, loss of health care right before a child was born, and at times uncertainty if we were even willing to be a team anymore. 

All of this created something between us that for me, is wonderful. 

We discovered we spent more time talking at each other and not to each other. We had conversations, but we didn't listen. We were two parallel roads never intersecting. 

We learned in our darkest place that we loved each other, and needed each other.  Our children needed us to find a way to merge lanes and be on the same road. 

Ever since then we have found a way to communicate that is amazing. We talk, not about our day or any non sense. We talk about our family, where we are, where we want to be, what we need, what we want, and the we gameplan together to make it work. 

We aren't perfect. No couple is. We still need work. We have committed to each other, to our love, and we have discovered we can do many things when we work together and remember we don't do it for us, or even our boys, but to be beacons of Gods love in this world.

When I think of my husband, I think of the unconditional love he has for me, that I try every day to repay.