It Was Twenty-Eight Years Ago Today

I was standing in front of the bedroom window in the California apartment where we would soon begin our life-trek together. The early morning sun streamed through the glass; I felt its warmth upon on my face, much as I did standing before the sliding glass door this morning, here in our current Tennessee home.

I remember thinking, “Today is the most important day of my life. Today everything changes. Today I’m getting married.”

And despite all the frustration, heartache, strife and malaise that has visited us off-and-on these past twenty-eight years, I still feel that same joy, that same excitement, the same thankfulness whenever I recall that wonderful moment; the moment when it really sunk in that my life would forever be changed by the woman God gave me to share my life with.

A woman who would bear my two wonderfully kind, gifted and vibrant children; a woman who would become the driving force in my life to slowly undo the not-so-positive conditioning of a passive father and mind-controlling stepmother, allowing me to become my own person, all the while weathering my passive-aggressive best attempts to resist her at nearly every turn.

A woman I truly adore.

That woman is you, Michelle.

Happy Anniversary.