Saturday, January 14, 2012

Love Eternal


Fifty years ago, in this dress of Chantilly lace and satin, a young girl of eighteen pledged to spend her life beside one man.

Until death do they part.

Not until the stress of kids got to be too much. Or until the bills got too high. Or until they got bored. Or until someone else came along. Or until one of their careers led them away from the other. Or until the nagging got too frequent. Or the snoring became too annoying.

Until. Death. Do. They. Part.

I'm once-divorced. It's not something I'm proud of, mind you, but it's the truth. Just like this girl promised, so did I. Until death do we part. Little did we know "death" was just five years away. We knew nothing about lifelong promises and felt we were above the vows we made. So we walked away.

Like most people of divorce, I took my lessons with me and much to even my own surprise, within a year of my divorce being final, I met a man and married him.

That man and I have been through hell and back. We've seen the dark and we've seen the light. We've seen the tears and the anger and the frustration. We've seen what rock bottom looks like and we've come close to throwing in the towel.

So close.

Closer than we ever care to admit and closer than we'll ever be again.

When we got to that point, it was only then that we realized if we gave up, we'd never have what his parents have. We would be just another statistic...just another failed attempt. What we realized is for better or for worse really meant just that. We'd seen the "worse" and it wasn't pretty.

So we made a decision, however subconsciously, that we were going to find the "better."

And I'm so grateful we did.

We still have bills we can't pay, days when I can't stop nagging him and I rarely get a full night's sleep without the interruption of his snoring, but we're here and we work every day to get it right.

And we have his parents to thank for giving us a living example of what it means to love eternally. Their compassion for each other reminded us of the compassion we still had in ourselves to push through.

Happy 50th anniversary, Mom and Dad.

1 comment:

  1. that is, truly inspiring. What a stunning dress. What an amazing story.

    Happy Anniversary to your parents.

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