There are lots of important things on my mind today, ranging from politics to religion to the differences between Veteran’s Day, Armistice Day, and Remembrance Day. But there is one thing that is by far more personal and important to me than all of that.
Thirteen years ago today my family gathered in a little white chapel on the Las Vegas Strip with a young British lady and her two sons. She wanted to make life bigger than the little town in the West Midlands that she lived in, and give it more than just a little. I won’t speak of her love and her feelings, for those are hers to verbalize. As for me, I joined her in front of a licensed minister, legal to perform marriages, because I wanted to bond my life with hers, and to make myself one with my Best Friend, and to start an adventure together that would be more than a mountain climb, more than a river to paddle, more than a project to compete. We picked the Graceland Chapel because in part, we were bonded by the music of our favorite artist, who took his bride at the same place.
Starting out as you do, little things bring a couple together, such as music, and shared interests. But over time, that grows into more substantive things, such as healing wounds, both physical and emotional, your own, and those of the children you bear together. Miles apart when young are traded for miles together on a shared path when a couple is older. Meals are made together, with laughter shared, meals are made apart, with worry and concern. Meals are made for one another, sometimes with love, sometimes to divert us from anger, sometimes with every effort to bring comfort in pain, and to bring health where it has fallen. In time, the walks in the graveyard with thoughts of who could be under the stones, deepen to the wonder of what stories lie there, canonized in the mortal record of solemn Earth. From tight lips to tight budgets, to hands held, and grudges let go, a life of togetherness brings meaning to the otherwise mundane sunrise to sunset to sunrise again cycle that has been going on here for longer than we can comprehend.
Love is a lot of things. The only way to really understand it is to live it. The best way to live it is to define it yourselves, and not let others tell you what it is. Today brings us to the thirteenth year of doing just that. We have had the ups and downs that we were promised. And we still have a long way to go. I am happy for it all.
I love you Katrina. Thanks for loving me, and for always showing me that love is more than I ever knew it could be.
Kelsey J Bacon