Wordless Wednesday - Disco Fever
My Mike is on the right with his older brother, Chuck, on the left. Griff, at 2, is standing in awe, I’m sure. This photo was taken a few days after the funeral of my mother-in-law at the house the boys grew up in together. We had all gone over to their dad’s house to help him clean out the boys’ mom’s closet. In the process, we found these clothes in their dad’s closet. A light moment certainly helped ease that day.
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Loving You… Still
Fourteen years ago today, I married the man of my dreams. I knew then that I was blessed, but I had no way of knowing just how much. I remember being very calm that morning, very peaceful, knowing that this was the surest thing I had ever done. I was right.
Mike was this tall, skinny, waif of a man, unsure of what he wanted to do with his life, other than be with me. He has grown into this tall, not-quite-so-skinny, handsome man, confident and secure in his life’s work. Age is on Mike’s side. He’s smart and funny and capable and … well, I think he’s amazing.
As he’s grown, as we’ve grown, my love for him has grown as well. This marriage is greater than the two of us. I remember reading something before we married that said that marriage was a triangle between two spouses and God, with God at the tippy top of the triangle. The closer each individual became to God, the closer they each became to one another. Mike and I seriously believed our commitment to one another and to God.
And there have been times when that commitment to God was one of the strongest forces in our marriage. There was a time when I was pretty sure Mike didn’t love me any longer, that he came home from working on his doctoral classes only because of Griffin, who was just a toddler. During those years when we were stretched way too thin, I can remember thinking that I understood how people could come to see divorce as a viable option. But I couldn’t figure out how to break that promise to God.
I’m glad I didn’t. Because once we worked through things, our marriage was even stronger. I’ve always said that while I need girlfriends (like air, I need them… but that’s another post), Mike was my best friend. Is. My best friend.
This move pretty much rendered Mike my only friend here in town (I’ve written before about how deeply grateful I am to have had my sister-in-law in the state). For two years now, Mike’s been not only my best friend but my only friend in a lot of ways. And he’s a really lousy girlfriend. But he’s tried so hard. It’s been really endearing.
He’s had the horrible job of having to listen to me cry and rant and talk about my heart aches while also knowing that we moved here for him. Guilt is my realm, not Mike’s. And that’s been hard for both of us. But he’s been all that I needed him to be. He’s been my calm place.
When we got married, one of the songs played at the wedding was Steven Curtis Chapman’s “Go There With You.”
I will take a heart whose nature is to beat for me alone
And fill it up with you - make all your joy and pain my own
No matter how deep a valley you go through
I will go there with you
And I will give myself to love the way Love gave itself for me
And climb with you to mountaintops or swim a raging sea
To the place where one heart is made from two
I will go there with you
Who knew I’d really be going places I hadn’t expected with him? Some days I tell him, ‘you know, I’d go anywhere for you.’ And he responds that I already have. Sweet, huh? Hard as this move was, I’d do it again in a heartbeat for Mike. And if he told me tomorrow that we needed to move again, I’d do it. I’d gripe about it, but I’d do it.
Because in the end, home is wherever Mike is. He is my heart. He is my home. I got the new issue of Real Simple magazine the other day & the question of the month was ‘what one thing could you not live without?’ Mike’s answer was fast and clear. “You.”
When my iPhone rings, and it’s Mike on the line, the ringtone that plays is Daughtry’s “Home.” Because Mike is my home. Forever. I am honored to love him and humbled to be loved by him.
Well I’m going home,
Back to the place where I belong,
And where your love has always been enough for me.
I’m not running from.
No, I think you got me all wrong.
I don’t regret this life I chose for me.
Tagged with: anniversary • love • marriage • Mike
Love is… 20 minutes alone
Mike’s a stay-home dad during the summer, running errands and doing laundry and cleaning and keeping up with the kids. He’s also become the neighborhood mom. This one little boy has all but moved in with us, and so some days, Mike’s here with three kids. Unless this boy’s brother comes over, too, and then the number climbs to four.
It’s been a horribly rough week at work for me (but it was encouraging that I spent a lot of my time helping someone else… hopefully, that says I’m getting better), and as soon as I got home from work tonight, we took Griff and his friend to the movies (save ‘Get Smart’ for your Netflix list). By the time we got home, I was worn out.
Mike was going to run out to get take-out for a late dinner, and I asked him to take both kids with him on the ride. And he did. And it’s just me here in the house. I am NEVER alone in the house. It’s kinda nice to sit here listening to the air pump in the fish tank and just enjoy the soft noises around me.
It’s easily going to be the best 20 minutes of my day. I’m going to go read a quick chapter in my Bible and then, after they burst back into the house with all of that little kid noise and energy, I’m going to make them leave Mike alone while he watches the Astros game.
Geaux Stros.
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Daddy’s Day
I got Mike the funniest card for Father’s Day today… the front says “Know why Father’s Day is in June?” and the inside says “Because about a month after Mother’s Day, a dad somewhere went…’heyyyy.’” It made me laugh because so often the daddies are overlooked.
My friend, LeeAnn, and I send gifts back and forth, and so often there’s something for each of us and for the kids but the daddies are never included. We tease that when Mandy and I send things, Mike and Josh are always overlooked.
I think that good daddies are overlooked all too often. Good fathers are strong and kind. They take care of business. They kill bugs (but not always spiders), and they calm irrational mama thoughts. They go out in the middle of the night to go to the drugstore to get Motrin for baby fevers. They know their kids’ schedules at school, and they know which subjects in which their kids excel.
Good fathers are emotionally available to their wives but not so much that they aren’t still frustratingly male. They grill. They watch Strawberry Shortcake over and over again with their little girls even though they’d rather be watching baseball. They read to their kids.
In the end, good fathers are overlooked because they’re so wonderfully stable. They are anchors in our lives.
Since I had children, I think of God so much more as a Heavenly Father than I did before because I see what all goes into being a good father… the love and patience and tenderness and strength … and I understand more (in my limited understanding) of what God must go through loving us yet having to guide and instruct us when we rebel and refuse and are obstinate. Knowing how I can love my children and be completely annoyed with them at the same time helps me to understand how God can love us and forgive us and instruct us at the same time.
Thinking of God as a Father has also reminded me of how blessed I am to have a good father here on Earth myself (along with a fabulous father-in-law). And I am overwhelmingly grateful to have Mike. I would have loved him forever if we hadn’t had kids, but in all honesty, having children and watching him with them and parenting alongside him has deepened my love for him in unimaginable ways.
We also also blessed to have brothers who are good fathers themselves. In the effort to be good parents, it’s so important to have good parents in it with you, and we have good fathers in our brothers. They love their children… they care for them… they discipline them… they inspire them.
Hillary may not have gotten everything right, but I do believe that it does take a village to raise a child, and we are so fortunate to have men like Chuck and John and Josh in our village.
So Happy Father’s Day… I love you, Mike.
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Drop and Give Me 40… or less
Here’s this week’s 40 Words or Less Challenge from Pensieve. The goal is to write something - pretty much anything, best I can tell - about the picture below… IN 40 WORDS OR LESS. Now, I am not known for being concise. If 10 words are good, 25 must be better. But the last time, I did it in exactly 40 words. I’m not promising that today, but we’ll see. Here’s this week’s effort.
Our last time in New Orleans… late at night, a new doctorate, a new life ahead. You and me. Crisp sheets, covered in Cafe du Monde love. Laughter, tears, powdered sugar goodness. Sleep. … Two years ago. Still makes me smile.
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