When you get married, you don’t consider all the things that can go wrong – the things that WILL go awry.
In many ways, Karen Carpenter was right: You’ve only just begun.
And little did I know that – just before our eighth anniversary – my husband would be driving me up a steep mountain road in the pouring rain with two excitable children in the backseat…thousands of miles from home.
Thanks, Expedia.
Continue reading “The Great American Family Road Trip [2017]: Day 4”
Don’t be afraid of what you don’t understand.
Easier said than done, of course, but this is my husband and I’s go-to advice for our three-year-old son when we know storms are imminent.
Two nights ago, however, we were no match for the incessant thunder and lightning.
At approximately 3:45 a.m. we awoke to my son’s tearful pleas: “Mommy! Daddy!” There was something different in my son’s voice this time – a blend of emerging maturity and raw fear. He sensed what was happening, yet couldn’t prevent himself from the human desire for certainty…and control.
I led my oldest child down the ladder as Mother Nature illuminated his small room with urgent pulses of white. The night’s antidote would be snuggles with Momma in the bottom bunk.
And, in that 10-minute embrace, shadows weren’t the only images that danced across his walls.
I hold this fear that I will die before I see 35. I worry I won’t know my son and daughter as teenagers. The very thought of never meeting my grandchildren, indeed, takes my breath away.
But I am overall healthy. I run 3-4 days a week. I don’t drink. And my days are fueled by oatmeal, nuts, and vegetables.
Recently, however, I was quite ill. Six hours of vomiting – to be exact. The virus was so powerful that I found myself gasping for air between commode encounters. On a makeshift bed of well-used towels – given to us at our wedding – I laid myself down. At 2 a.m. the Earth is silent.
Until, that is, I heard a door creak.
“I think I’m dying!”
“No, you’re not.”
And, with that, a hand I know so well rubbed my back.
My husband and I designed our home to be a space of freedom and exploration for our children, but one area remains off-limits: the corner of our main hallway. In this nook resides our wedding invitation and my dried bouquet. They rest upon a table built by my groom – an anniversary gift.
It didn’t take long for our little ones to learn: Do not touch something so sacred.
And the great irony is this: I wish I had been so careful with my actual marriage these last seven years.
Unlearning 