Earlier this week Gary and I celebrated our wedding anniversary. We've been married nineteen years. And when I titled this My Best Friend I wasn't being facetious. He truly is my best friend. He knows me better than anyone - even better than I know myself. He is truly an amazing man and taught me so much! A friend of mine from high school who is on Facebook sent me a private message a while back saying that he read my posts and he could tell how happy Gary and I were from our posts. Yes we are happy and it made me feel good to know that this came across in our posts.
Let me tell you a little bit about how we got to this point in our marriage. We have never made any secret of the fact that I am older than Gary. Thirteen years older to be exact. This has brought us a lot of amusing responses sometimes when people realize our age difference. One of my favorite is from a former Sunday School student who upon learning that I was 13 years older responded "Way to go, Mrs. Marrs!". We went together for two and a half years before we got married. We never intended to end up in a relationship, but then nothing ever goes the way you plan when God is involved.
When we got married I had three teenage daughters (ages, 12, 14, and 16) and another teenage girl (16) living with us as her parents had moved out of state and she wanted to continue in the school she was at. I thought I almost had my family raised and was on the downhill slide of parenting so to speak. I thought Gary was young enough (he was only 24) that he should consider having a family of his own. So when he asked me to marry him I told him no. I told him no many, many times. It was to the point where the girls were asking me daily "have you told Gary yes yet?" I accused him of paying them off. LOL He finally convinced me and you could say the rest is history but our relationship is anything but typical.
When we got married Gary started a job with a new company (Wendy's). They were building a new restaurant in town and it was supposed to be open within two to three months. He would spend that time training and opening up other new stores until his was ready. We knew this and thought we could handle the two - three months. Surprise!!! Construction issues set that time frame back and we spent the first year of our marriage apart from each other. He would typically work ten days then have three-four days when he would come home. He opened stores in Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas. Depending on where he was at we might meet in Kansas City to spend an afternoon together. We survived and finally were able to actually 'start' our life together.
Another surprise within our first year of marriage -- we welcomed our first grandson! How many people are so lucky to be able to have a grandson at such an early age? And what a blessing he and all our other grandchildren are to us.
We have added two more children, through adoption, to our family and that first grandchild has increased to seven. Through all this Gary has been my rock. He has been there when we have gone through the miscarriage of grandchildren, through the hurts and pains of children in general, through deaths in the family, through numerous surgeries and always always he has been there for me.
He has taught me patience and understanding. He has taught me to be myself. He has encouraged me and loved me unconditionally. He has been an amazing step-father and father. He has shown me what a true friend is. He has been a Godly example to our children and to me. He has shown me what it is to really serve with your heart. He has taken care of me, supported me and loved me.
One of the things I love most about our marriage is our laughter. There is not a day goes by that we do not share laughter either with each other or at each other ( and to be honest most of it is at me). I consider my day a good day if I am able to make him laugh -- thankfully almost every day is a good day!
So although our anniversary was a couple of days ago - I still want to wish my best friend a Happy Anniversary.
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