Yesterday was our 16th anniversary. Every year when this day rolls around, I think back to the day in 1995 when we got married. And this year I started thinking about how people always say, "I love him more today than I did when we got married." And I always wonder how you measure the amount of love you feel for somebody. My black and white mind doesn't completely understand that concept. When I think about Cole I don't think I love him *more* than I did 16 years ago, I think I love him *differently.*
16 years ago we were in our early twenties with dreams of careers, babies, and all the other things young people dream about, because they haven't lived long enough to know that life isn't always sunshine and rainbows. And it didn't occur to us that our lives together would be anything short of total happiness or that things wouldn't always go our way. I guess you could say we were innocent, and so was our love.
And as the years went on, yes, we had a LOT of happiness, but we had a lot of situations thrown at us that we hadn't considered even in our wildest dreams. For example, when Brendan was born, we almost lost him due to group b strep. It never entered our minds that this most amazing of miracles could be anything less than everything we had dreamed it would be. We didn't think anything other than a perfect pregnancy, perfect birth, healthy baby, and happily ever after could happen. And then it did.
Then 7 years later Cole was diagnosed with melanoma. He was 33 years old and was diagnosed with melanoma - the most deadly of skin cancers. And again we were caught off guard by the shock of a cancer diagnosis in our early 30's. These things aren't supposed to happen when you're that young. Or so we thought.
During these two most scary of crises we grew up, and so did our love. I've never been more scared in my life than when my newborn baby was lying in the NICU at St. David's fighting for his life or when we didn't know if the cancer had spread through Cole's body, and if so, to what degree. But we faced them together and came out on the other side a lot stronger.
In our 16 years of marriage, we've had many more scary, sad moments than the two I mentioned. Collin was also a NICU baby (he needed help breathing more than he was in danger of dying), we've lost grandparents, we've been through times when the budget was so tight had we mismanaged our money by even a quarter our account would have been in the red, and there have been numerous other trials that we've faced. But we've faced all of them together.
And so while I can't really say that I love Cole more than I did when I married him, I just love him differently. I love him in a more grown-up, secure way than I did then. It's a way that means we've been through too many ups and downs to count, and we've loved each other through all of it. And I know that as we age we change emotionally and physically. I look at pictures taken before and at our wedding and I can't help but notice how thin I was and how much hair Cole had. It's amazing what 16 years will do to a person. And even though I may never be that thin 22 year old again and Cole may one day lose every hair he has on his head, that's not what it's about. It's about building a life together and loving each other through the good, the bad, and the ugly. And waking up every morning and being grateful for all of it.
Recent Comments