When Ellyson was born a year ago on our 6thwedding anniversary, Allyson (who also has a daughter born on their anniversary) warned me not to forget to celebrate our anniversary on top of birthday festivities. I don’t think I could forget if I wanted to.
It’s a joke that men always forget their anniversaries. In our home, Ed will have to have Alzheimer’s before he forgets that. Nearly a month before he was asking me what we should do. Since the Saturday before our anniversary was already penciled in as a possible work Saturday, he said we had to go out the weekend before that. He made the reservations for a really nice place someone had given us a gift card to, and I asked my parents if they could babysit for the weekend. Then he asked how much money he was allowed to spend on a gift. I kept it simple: just don’t make me angry when I see the debit in the checking account.
All of this made me realize something: our anniversary is vitally important to him. I’m not saying I don’t consider it important, but I’m also not thinking four weeks in advance about it when I have things coming up in two weeks I need to plan for first. When that dawned on me, I had to stop and consider why. It didn’t take me long to land on the answer: his parents divorced when he was eight years old. And he knew before that that neither of them considered their marriage very important: his dad was too self-centered and his mom gave up after she quickly realized she had not married Prince Charming. Add to that quite a few girlfriends, failed relationships, and hard feelings of his own…he had a great desire for a successful marriage but no strong examples.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, my maternal grandparents were married for twenty-plus years before my grandfather died of lung cancer. My paternal grandparents were married for just short of fifty-five years before my grandmother passed away. And my parents have been married for forty-four years this month. I’m not saying that any of them found marriage easy, always happy, or endless days of smooth-sailing. Marriage is hard. It’s easy to consider giving up. But they didn’t. And those are the examples I have.
Thinking about all this reminded me that marriage is worth celebrating, and I need to join him take time to do so. So, even though we will celebrate Ellyson each year and the life God has given her, we will also take time to rejoice in the marriage God has sustained for us. Two very good reasons to throw a party!
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