In Sickness & In Health

 

 

Dear Darren,

 

This year, a day before our tenth wedding anniversary, I will watch as you are wheeled into surgery to remove a spot of skin cancer, a melanoma. I will anxiously wait for the surgery to be completed and anxiously wait some more for the results of the lymph node biopsy, which will tell us if the cancer has spread. So much anxiety and sadness juxtaposed with celebrating a day that held so much joy. If this is not life, if this is not marriage, then I do not know what is.

Amid so much good and so many blessings in all our years together, we would be remiss not to mention the struggles. From the petty and every day to the significant and long-lasting. From the bad luck that comes without fault of our own to the personal weaknesses that keep us making the same mistakes again and again.

Though at times we may wish to do so, we cannot take away the bad times without also removing the lessons we have learned and the strength that we have gained from our shared struggles. How can we recognize ease without the experience of hardship? It is not easy to be surrounded by the muck of life and smile at your spouse, but we have managed it a few times. Lucky for us that life is always giving us plenty of opportunities to practice. Both of us taking turns at being strong, being positive and keeping an eye on the goal. We haven't always gotten there without complaint or injury, without tears or panic, but we have always gotten there together.  

Hands down you are the absolute best at forgiving me of my mistakes. I cannot tell you how much it means to me to have no fear when I have to call and tell you that I hit your car with my car or spent $500 on the wrong sized tile (which we can't return) or accidentally broke our son's arm at gymnastics...I could keep going with that list. But each and every time, you have put my heart at ease. That is more gift than I often feel I deserve, especially when I have been so willing to show you my annoyance at some of the most insignificant of errors. For that, I apologize. Your strength in crises (big, small, real or imagined) and your willingness to withhold judgment has helped to create for us bridges that help us to cross more easily from hardship to acceptance and resolution. These bridges altogether have helped create the bulwark of our love and our relationship and established the foundation for our family's life.

So, here we are...and sometimes (but rarely) it all feels so good and so easy, but a lot of the time it feels messy and exhausting and difficult. Good-bad, poor-rich, sickness-health...so, here I stand (tired & worried) and give thanks for sunny vacations & children with the flu, freshly bathed babies & stained rugs, walking hand-in-hand & the argument that comes at the end of a bad day, tired muscles from too much work (still not completed) & having you in my life for the past 10 years and every day until forever. And I will count us blessed to have known both sides of life and more blessed to have known them together.

I love you, Darren.