My Love, My Best Friend

Love Is

like a quilt.
It keeps you warm, makes you feel safe, and cozy. At least that is what love is to me.
It's funny how we change our opinion of love as we grow older. I remember when I was a kid, I was going to marry a movie star, live in a mansion and be filthy rich! Then as I got older, I decided that I would marry someone with an important job, a new car, and be filthy rich.
I dated in high school, and into my twenties and thirties. I went out with some really nice guys, and some real losers, but none of them made me feel "THAT" feeling. I had a good time, and did my share of the wild living thing.( Well, wild for that generation, tame for the new generation). I had resigned myself to being single for the rest of my life, and I was okay with that. I wasn't sitting home brooding about it, I was having a good time.
My brother and sister-in-law, tried and tried again to "fix me up" with "really great guys". They were fun, but they never seemed to make me want to think of forever. Then one Friday night in February of 1989, we were at the local pub where we used to go to listen to the band and spend hours on the bowling machine, my life changed. My sister-in-law, told me that she had a guy that wanted to meet me. He was sitting across the bar from me and she pointed him out. He was okay, but I didn't want to get into that whole thing again, so I said no. She told him that I wasn't interested, and he left. That was that, or so I thought. About an hour later, she told me that he was back and he "just wanted to meet me". Again I said no, and he left.
Finally around 11:00 and her asking me twice more, I said, okay I would meet him, but for one drink and that was it. She went over to him and he followed her back to where we were sitting waiting our turn on the bowling machine. His name was Jerry, and he seemed nice enough. Something about him hit me like a ton of bricks. I found myself really liking this guy! He was nice. He had jet black hair and a neatly trimmed beard and moustache, he was okay!
By midnight, I was hooked. I knew that I wanted to see him again, and hoped that he would want to see me. We went bck to my brother and sister-in-law's house and stayed until almost three a.m. He drove me home, and hooked me for good when he said. "I really had a great time tonight, I would like to see you again, Would you be my girl?" Would I be his girl?? Right out of the 50's! I was in love!
That was the beginning of the best part of my life. On Saturday, we went to my brother and sister-in-law's for dinner and played Yatzhee until two a.m. On Monday morning he picked me up and took me out to breakfast before taking me to work. He was already retired on a Medical Disability. He picked me up from work that night and brought me home. Every morning from then on he took me out for breakfast in the morning and most evenings after work, I would go to his house for dinner. Spending all of my time with him, just seemed so natural.
In March, he proposed to me, and I never hesitated when I said yes. I just knew that we would be together forever.

Wedding vows are so often taken for granted, just something that you repeat for the priest, minister, or the justice of the peace so you can be pronounced man and wife. The things like "For Better or For Worse", "In Sickness and In Health" are to so many, just words. If you really love someone,these words become the creed that you live by, the very fibers that make up the quilt that is a marriage. Jerry and I have been through the "better and the worse", with more of both to come I am sure. We have been through, and are going through the "sickness and health" too, but we never for a moment think about getting out because times are tough for us, or he or I can't do the things we used to do because of health problems. Never for a moment do I think of finding someone else, or do I worry that he is looking for someone in better health. I love him and he loves me.
I have never been what you would call beautiful, but he has always made me feel that I am. When he looks at me, it is with such love in his eyes, that there is no doubt in my mind that we were destined to be together. So many people I know feel stressed out when one or the other of them retires, and they are together all of the time. They get on each other's nerves, the fighting and bickering starts, and they end up saying and doing things that they regret. We have been very fortunate. We are together all of the time ( well most of the time) and we still get along as well as when we first got married.
No, I am not saying that we never argue, or that we never disagree, of course we do, we are human after all. We do however make it a practice never to go to bed angry at one another, or never leave the house angry at one another. When one of us goes out, we kiss goodbye and tell each other "I love you". You never know what will happen, and how horrible it would be if the last thing that we said to one another as we left, was something mean or hateful. Those things can never be taken back, if it is the last thing we say to one another.
Part of the success of our marriage is that we have never tried to change one another, yet we have both changed for each other. We give and take, and have pretty close to a 50/50 marriage. As close as it gets anyway.
This July we will celebrate twelve years of marriage. Sometimes it seems like only yesterday that we met, other times, I can hardly remember what my life was like without him in it. He is my husband, my lover, my hero, and my very best friend, and without him, I would only be half a person. God Blessed me the day that Jerry came into my life, and not a day goes by that I don't thank Him for the man I love with all of my heart.

Well, it has been 13 years now. July 22nd, 2002 we celebrated our 13th anniversary. Here is a gift from my sister Heidi.