I should have written this the other day but ran out of time so I’m writing it now. I got married on Monday. Yep. I married, well actually remarried, well, actually reaffirmed our marriage vows with the most wonderful women in the world. Monday, May 31, 2010 was Patty’s and my 24th anniversary. Man how I love this woman. She has been so good to me over the years. She has put up with a lot, tolerated more than she should have to, and yet always was there for me. God truly blessed me by giving her to me as my partner.
For years I had always thought about reaffirming my vow to her. For some reason the 25th anniversary seemed like the appropriate time. After all, a quarter of a century seemed like a good number to acknowledge in such a way. Late last week (while I was still “house bound”, unable to sneak out and find the appropriate anniversary gift) I was sitting on the deck just sort of thinking the situation over when it struck me. I can give her me again! (Lucky woman.) I thought, “You know, why wait until the 25th? Let’s do it now.” I immediately picked up the phone, called our Priest, and talked it over with him. Fortunately he would be able to come to the house the evening or our anniversary and perform the reaffirmation.
My intent was to keep it a secret from her and sort of casually mention it to her when the Priest arrived. Right. She discovered my scheme, well; actually I ended up telling her (I guess I was so excited about it I just had to share it with someone) and she became as excited about it as I was. Only our Priest, Patty, Chris and I attended the ceremony. Chris was our witness. It was simple, sweet, and very, very special.
Actually, when I was on the deck contemplating our upcoming anniversary I began to realize that this just might be our last one. I know, God is great, God is good. Yet realistically speaking there is a pretty good chance that a year from now I might not be around. Well, there is nothing I can do about that but what I can do is what I had always planned to do later, reaffirm our vows. So that is exactly what we did. Perfect.
This cancer we are battling has really slammed things into perspective for us. Some of the things that used to be important to us are now trivial while some of the things that used to be trivial or taken for granted have moved to the front of the “important” line. I know that this sounds really naive, but in many ways this cancer has been a blessing to us.
Our Lawyer Rob has become a very special friend of mine. He told me that his wife had cancer and that the doctors had given her a very short time to live. Of course the initial shock was overwhelming to them but very shortly after her diagnosis they made the conscious decision to, in Rob’s words, “Not sit around waiting for the other shoe to drop”. They would realign their priorities, go on with their lives, and let God decide what would happen and when it would happen. That was years ago and they are still living their lives together. His story had quite an impact on me. Pat and I have now realigned our lives. I believe we are closer now than we have ever been. We are thankful for every day we have together and look forward to many more. We may not get many more days, but we are taking advantage of every day we do have, one at a time, with priorities that really matter. We do not want to waste one day. All of our days are now special to me. I wish I had realigned my priorities years ago. Hey, who knows, maybe in another 24 years when we celebrate our 48th anniversary I can say that I am so happy we realigned our priorities 24 years ago.
God is great, God is good.
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