I remember the way he looked when we first met. I remember everything about our first date.
I remember his face when I told him I was pregnant. How he told me he loved me and I thought he was crazy. I remember the chocolate ice cream we were eating when he first told me he wanted to marry me. I remember when he told me that we would try again, right away, after we lost the twins. How lost I was when he wasn’t with me that first year.
I remember when Jessie was born, how tiny she looked in his arms. The way he’d swaddle her so carefully, taking her from my arms after I nursed her and then tricking her into falling asleep. I remember telling him when I was pregnant with Sam, and how he kept repeating “it’s a boy, it’s a boy” after he was born. How Sam would cry and cry and Marc didn’t care at all. He was, and is, Sam’s first hero. I remember when I found out I was pregnant with Julianna, how we didn’t tell anyone for that first few days, like it was this incredible secret that we had together. He put her to sleep every night and shared breakfast with her. She was Daddy’s girl from the start.
There are other, harder, memories. The accident and the aftermath. Everything about that time in our lives was hard, but he was right there, all the time. A lot of couples break up when you go through something like that – but trauma brought us closer. Not closer – because we were already so much of a unit. But the strength of that unit was enough.
We’ve sent three girls off to college, gotten one kid through some massive trauma on every level possible – physical, emotional, illness and injury. We’ve survived covid quarantine, multiple job losses, five or six cars, seven apartments, two dogs, six fish and one wiggly hamster. Everything about my life is more than I ever thought possible, and I’m never not grateful for him. Everything I love starts with him.
Happy 20th anniversary. I can’t wait to see what the next 20 brings.
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