Happy Quarter Century, Eva and Ken

Twenty five years.

Five cars,  eight pets (not counting the dogs we inherited). Five domiciles, though the majority of time was spent in the house we specifically picked with kids in mind. 

No kids.

She offered me a divorce when it became clear -- after seven miscarriages and the failed adoption process -- that we wouldn't be blessed with children. It's the only time that word has ever come up in 25 years and I slapped it down hard. I married her, which means I married everything that came along with her...and didn't marry what didn't.  Although our vows named each other "the mother/father of our children" and I would have loved any child we had with my whole being, I got a vasectomy when the Universe made it more than obvious we weren't meant to be parents. I'm more than okay with this most of the time. Every now and again I see a child blooming and think that could have been our child and the twinge can be painful, but it's always fleeting.

We were each other's best friends pretty much upon meeting. That hasn't changed. We've had some very high highs: our Disney trip fifteen years ago was perhaps the highest of them. We've had some very low lows, usually financial in nature, but we have powered through.

We've seen each other through health scares and health triumphs, the latter exemplified by her having lost more than half of her body weight, the former largely arising, on her end, from complications from the surgery that diminished her. It's a toss-up whether she'd choose to have that surgery again, and the consequences of not having the surgery would almost certainly have included death. That should give you an inkling how hard the last several years have been to and for her. 

That's our marriage in broad strokes. But the abiding joy of it is in the little things, the countless in-jokes, the meals Eva prepares as offerings, the daily shared joys and pains. I'm sure most couples of this duration can relate: you have a cornucopia of trivialities, meaningless to others,  that are nevertheless rich with meaning for you. 

Before we even married, Eva corrected the spendthrift that ruled my life from 18-28. Then she worked on calming me, ridding me of some nervous tics, and generally opening my mind. (That's been a lifetime's work.)

For my part (I just asked), Eva tells me I taught her what love is. I objected: she clearly knew, but she was insistent. "I mean unconditional love, truly unconditional. You love me no matter what I look like on a given day, and even no matter how I ACT on a given day."

Well, duh, that's what love is. But I guess she hadn't experienced it before.

I've calmed her mental storms and taught her to relax -- that's my lifetime's work for her, forever telling her that yes, it's okay to take time out for herself, make the meal she enjoys, and it's especially okay to tell the mother-voice inside her -- which insists she's not good enough, not skinny enough, not productive enough, not enough period -- to take a running leap.

Twenty five years.

Still going strong.

I love you, Eva.