Fifteen Years And Counting

There are lines around his eyes that weren’t there fifteen years ago today.  We were just a couple of kids then, barely into our twenties, crazy about each other and filled with only hope for what life might bring.  We couldn’t wait to start the journey of marriage - to see what all those tomorrows together might become.  We stood on that altar in front of God and all those people, and made promises that are hard to keep.  Now, when I look into those eyes of his, the lines of all our years remind me how far we’ve come, and I’m glad we’ve kept those promises.

His hands are different, too.  Their look of youth is fading fast and they remind me we don’t have forever.  But those hands . . . they held tight to mine through every pain, and they held babies as they breathed their first.  Those hands have changed diapers and prepared meals and cradled faces and stroked skin.  They’ve been covered in filth with the responsibilities of our lives for days and weeks and months that have stretched into all this time.  Those hands of his are etched with the sacrifices of a man who has given himself to his family, and I am grateful.

Even his smile has changed.  Still sincere . . . contagious really . . . but not as simple as it once was.  He knows more now.  He knows the demands and duties and difficulties that come with being a husband and father.  He knows worry and disappointment and sorrow, and how each can grow deep into a long night.  He knows pure joy, too.  He knows what it means to have your baby boy rest his head on your chest, and what it’s like to witness your daughter’s first steps.  That smile of his . . . it holds so much understanding after fifteen years of marriage.  It reaches me from across a room and all our memories pass unspoken between us, and there is a sustaining security I could never put into words, but which I feel all the way down to my soul.

I thought I knew him well on the day we said, "I do."  Looking back now, I can see that I barely knew myself.  Thankfully, we've grown closer as we've grown up, navigating our union while building a life.  I'm not the same girl who walked down the aisle towards him fifteen years ago.  I wonder, some days, how he can even recognize me as his bride, and yet . . . he always does.

He's not the same man I married either.  He’s so much more.  He's a man weathered and changed and matured by shared happiness, forgiven hurts, kept commitments. 

Today, I’ve spent a decade and a half as his wife.  I’ve spent even longer by his side.  

And I would still choose him.

If two lie down together, they will keep warm. 
But how can one keep warm alone? 
Ecclesiastes 4:11