22 years ago Dear Hubby and I got married in front of family and friends, we had flown down from Yellowknife NWT to get married at the town my mother lived in (around 2.5 hours or so from hubby’s mother) in alberta..  We got married the day after boxing day because coming from a mix of pipelining and military family members it was the only way to have them all there including my dad and big brother.

I got to meet a number of Dear Hubbies family that flew in from Ontario mainly with one family from Sask.. my own family came from B.C. and across Alberta, with my dear bridesmaid also flying down from Yellowknife to be at the wedding..  It was as small as we could make it.. and I wish I had broken the rules, it was said that I could not invite X cousin’s without inviting them all.. but if I could have, I would have said.. set 5 more plate and called my closest cousin’s and told them to door crash..  Its been 22 years and I still regret that some of them were not at my wedding day..

It was a beautiful wedding in its own way, I still love my purple/white colored flowers and my mother got to have her dream come true in the sense that she went with my step father and tried on white wedding dresses (I really pushed hard for cream, not white but in truth I wanted velvet royal forest green lol!) My mom found a truly beautiful  white wedding dress..  and I know it made her heart sing to see me wear it..

We both pushed hard that it was a non-church wedding as I was expecting Maeve and while we had both been brought up in the same church, we both felt that while we had the standard wedding vows ( plus we did a lovely celtic hand binding in the middle of the more tradional wedding.. which most of my family thought was just “me” having a lovely wedding poem being read and followed.. it was far more)

I am glad that I pushed for that for while the bonds and promise to state can be broken with a filing of paper, the bonds set forth that day between us as a couple and between us and the Spirit that day have held us in good stead.

I will tell you a truth I have learned over the years, if you are lucky, you will always love your husband or wife but you fall in and out of love over and over again..  this can be said in many ways.. you grow at different speeds, you are walking different paths at the moment and so on..  If anyone tells you they loved their mate the same in every moment, in every day the same.. well, I call BS..

Some moments we feel so full that it feels like a warmth spreads though us, some times you cry with the joy of being lucky enough to share this world with that person.. and sometimes we know that we love them but “life” is right in front of us and must be figured out..

I remember being in my mid 20’s and knowing that I was strong and that if my marriage did not work out that I would be ok, that I could and would deal with it and get on with the next chapter.  Now 22 (almost 23 years) later with my husband and I know that I am strong, and I would carry on but that I would be broken to the end of my days..

Not Broken in the sense of never to love again or find happiness but that there would always be a wound, a weight, a carry of all the dreams, hopes, memories.. that their weight would always be with me till I crossed over.. and I consider that to be a amazing blessing indeed..  how lucky have I been to have lived a life that created that weight..

In 2020 there was a moment where I watch them take him away from the farm racing to the ER, where I stood there humbled, shaking knowing that I might lose him and that I could not even go with him or be in the hospital with him.. (MotherBleepingCovid) meant that I spent days waiting in the parking lot of that hospital, waiting for news, waiting with prayer.. Waiting to see if I would get to see him alive once more.. waiting for what the call would bring me in regards to news..

My 22 year happy anniversary would have come this year regardless but it was not a sure thing that we would be sharing it together and it shook me.. shook me hard.. the past year has had a crazy amount of learning curve to it.. so many changes, and I am grateful for needing to make each and every single one of them because it means we are both here, in the now.. together!

The past two years have been hard and the ones coming are going to be hard as well.. so hug your loved ones, pray (if you do so, in whatever way connects you to spirit) because today is never promised and it can change in a moment..