By the good Lord’s grace my wife and I have somehow made it
to our 9th anniversary. That’s not particularly remarkable. Lots of
couples make it that far. Perhaps what is amazing isn’t so much that we’ve made
it through 9 years of marriage but rather that we ever got married in the first
place. I’m still not sure why she said yes.
At one of my wife’s bridal showers my very own mother told
the group: “We’re just glad that Aaron found SOMEONE.” That sentiment was
repeated by my brother at the groom’s dinner. Apparently there was familial
concern that I was destined for bachelorhood. I’ve never followed up with them
to see what the concern was.
Anyway, nine years is worth celebrating because my wife is
worth celebrating. All of my best
moments have come with her at my side. Chief among those moments was the time
last summer when I started a slow clap at the Twins stadium that eventually
spread through the whole stadium. It was
awesome. Close behind are the births of my children and my wedding day, but
lots of people get married and have kids while few people start slow claps for crowds
of 40,000 people.
Some other highlights of the past nine years include:
- Getting violently ill on our honeymoon. Who would have thought that serious illness was possible on a backpacking trip through a third world country? Not sure what I was thinking on that one.
- Staying at a hotel/drug house in Guatemala where needles were left in the open on tables in the shared balconies. We moved the extra bed in front of the locks-from-the-outside-with-a-padlock door.
- Doing a 360 on an icy freeway alongside a semi-truck then jumping a median on her birthday just after we found out that we were expecting our first daughter.
- Me needing to be rescued from a closet because I played hide-and-seek with my daughters the day I ran a marathon but my legs gave out leaving my unable to get myself out.
- Our weights growing ever closer while Erica was pregnant with Miriam. It got close there at the end!
- A New Years Day at the cabin that began by stepping out of bed into two inches of water. Sorry about the burst pipe, Dad!
- The time I sprained my ankle, ignored my nurse/wife’s advice and then passed out because of the pain.
- Being chased by an elk in Estes Park with our infant daughter strapped to my chest in the baby bjorn. No lie, it pulled up about 5 yards short of trampling us.
If I kept the list going most of the anecdotes would be re-iterations of me ignoring advice from Erica and then some sort of mishap or calamity visiting us. The amazing thing about our 9 years is primarily that I am still alive and that I haven’t driven my beautiful bride to insanity. Seriously she is patient, kind, loving, caring, intelligent, and a gift from God to all who know her. She is the kind of mother that others want to learn from, the kind of friend that people want to keep for life, and the kind of person that makes others better. None of those is true of me (especially the mother part) and I am so grateful that she is mine and I am hers. Some long lost charm of mine must have been at play when she said yes all those years ago.
As a gift to the internet I leave you with the invitation to our groom's dinner 9 years ago:
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