We have a marriage that we celebrate every day. We don't aim to portray #relationshipgoals (I despise this hashtag),but neither of us settle for a mediocre marriage either. We don't want to just pass our days together. We want to celebrate them all. That's not to say every day is a picnic. There are HARD days. But I am grateful to have something positive in our marriage each day for which I can give thanks.
Despite the fact that it was our anniversary, yesterday was a day where we had to dig deep to celebrate. We were headed out for our annual anniversary dinner, where the girls planned to sit at their own table and let us "be alone" like they did when we celebrated last year. It was so sweet of them to plan out an uninterrupted evening for just the two of us. However, when we pulled in to our hotel for the evening and got Wi-Fi for the first time, we couldn't resist looking to see if an important email we had been waiting for had finally come through.
Upon seeing an email from the U of I in our inbox, it was as if we were living the opening line of Charles Dickens, The Tale of Two Cities. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." Our wedding vows came flooding back and the juxtaposition of those simple words we expressed so naively on our wedding day, as we promised to love each other through better or worse, seemed so ironic.
We joined hands, opened up our email, and together we stepped into our 'worst of times.' We had been awaiting our test results from an amnio that we had done 6 days ago. Though usually our experience with waiting for results has seemed rather agonizing, this time around, neither of us were eager for the results. We left on vacation knowing it would delay our receipt of them since we would be lacking phone service, but knew that, regardless of what the tests showed, there was nothing that we have done or can do to intervene and change those results, so we set down worry and picked up faith.
We didn't want the girls to know something was up or dampen the mood of our vacation, so we read our email, swallowed our difficult news, and headed out the door for dinner. With broken hearts we plastered smiles on our faces, a million questions in our minds centering around the fate of our little boy. Conversation was rote. Hunger was absent. Food was bland. Emotions were numb. Later, I'm sure I will post about this day in Cody, Wyoming with rose-colored glasses. It will be real, but real from the perspective of my children, as Mark and I will always have opposing viewpoints than the girls on what you can find in Cody. They found Tee-Pees, Wild Bill Cody, and the Wild West. We found heartache.
Cody will forever be where we first read that awful email, that reads more like a death sentence than a diagnosis. It is where a portion of our world crumbled. It is where Mark and I stifled back pain and tears as we cried ourselves to sleep in some crappy hotel on US 14 as we tried to not wake the girls sleeping in the bed next to us. It is where wrapped in Marks arms, I tried to make sense of things, deep down knowing that no sense can ever be made of it. It is where guilt and blame and anger will forever be buried, as we both know that if we are to move forward through this, these things will have to stay behind.
We checked out of the hotel this morning, eyes nearly swollen shut from exhaustion and emotion. It has forever changed us. We are lacking in morale this morning, but overflowing with love. Our worst of days have come, and I wish I could say they will be our last, but I feel there will be more heartache looming on the horizon. I do not want our beautiful marriage to go un-celebrated, so Happy anniversary to a man who is amazing even on the worst of days.
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