happy valentine's day...

 a love story.

it was the mid eighties, a time of big hair and big dreams. all of mine had just come crashing down. a young mom with two very little boys i wasn't prepared for the sudden end to my "perfect" life. but we all know things can change, some doors close gently others slam shut.
i fumbled around for a year or so not knowing sometimes how i got through my days. it was my first real experience with grief and i was moving through it slowly. i was certainly not looking to start a new life but that is usually when things present themselves.
while at  my nephews christening i chatted wth with a friend of my sisters, i knew of him,  just not very well.  i vividly remember that day,  he made me laugh, laughing wasn't happening that often at that time.  he seemed like a protector,  i guess it went along with his profession. in an effort to find out more about me and not let on to my sister, he ran my license plate to see where i lived. we later joked that he was making sure i wasn't a felon. shortly after that time we ran into each other again, this time with his new found knowledge that i wasn't a felon he asked me out. 
we started to spend time together.  most of the time it always involved kids. but it gave me the chance to see how kind he was. his parental qualities were stellar.  everything told me to run, why get involved again and set yourself up for another chance at loss? i was a train wreck about to derail.

my emotions were all over the place.  but he was patient and reminded me there was no rush. he was willing to wait until i felt like i was on solid ground.  he wrote me love letters from the heart.

 time passed and i was healing.

then one new years eve after nursing two sick kids for a week and trying so hard to stay awake
until midnight, he handed me a ring.  he made a promise and he made me feel braver than i ever thought i could feel again.

      but in my usual madness a short time later i had a melt down - what if this didn't work either? 
      once  again he stepped aside and waited. patiently.

18 months later on a  beautiful june day we were married, all four of us.  the boys even took their own vows. 

marriage turned out to be everything i thought it would be and everything i thought it wouldn't be.. 
                                    good and bad, and easy and hard and amazing and challenging.
                                                                time kept moving forward.

      then three years later on my dad's birthday we brought a beautiful little girl into this world. 
      she shared his birthday and his gorgeous blue eyes.

our story is real. it's a love story that happens over the course of months and years.  it happens over heartbreak and joy.  late night ER visits and ski trips, summer beach houses and disagreements.  new houses and broken down cars. graduations and funerals. it happens over hundreds of dinners at the table and during hundreds of hours of sporting events, late night work shifts and early morning details.  it happens over tears and exhaustion and dishes in the sink. it happens over delivering the newspapers at 3am on christmas so you can get the 5k college fund scholarship. it happens over acceptance and rejection.

(1997)

it happens when we realize we all have faults, sometimes we disappoint each other but this gift of love is truly a gift, not given with anything expected in return.  we hold hands and we hold on to the dream.  it's a journey we are on together. a work that's always in progress.

i look at my husband and i know how much he loves us.  he has shown us over and over again.
he always gives me his best even when i don't deserve it.  he encourages me to go out with my friends and really wants me to have fun. his family means everything to him.  he leaves clothes all over the place and piles papers a mile high on his night stand, but he makes a mean dinner and has such a quick wit.   he is the most thoughtful gift giver of all time, he loves a bargain and buys them, like i buy shoes, even if we don't need them.  he is always thinking of others.  he has taught me what it really means to love someone.

                                               this is the story that binds us together.

                                                                        happy love month.


love sent, xo