Celebrating Ten Years Today

How joyful to be together, alone

as when we first were joined

in our little house by the river

long ago, except that now we know

each other, as we did not then;

and now instead of two stories fumbling

to meet, we belong to one story

that the two, joining, made. And now

we touch each other with the tenderness 

of mortals, who know themselves...

~ Wendell Berry,

from "The Blue Robe"

I suspect we are the “unlikely couple” – the city girl from Ontario and the Nova Scotia country boy – who got together on a blind date then married a year later.

The marriage is doomed! There’s no way those two can stay together.

We are lucky to have found happiness the second time around. Dwayne found fidelity and respect, and I found compatibility and reliability. We found true love, and we are grateful for that every day. That love, that gratitude is what gets us through the challenges.

Doomed, were we? Not built to last, you say?

Sure, there are the good morning and goodnight kisses, there is open communication – even when it’s hard to talk about it – and there is the sticking-it-out-because-what’s-the-alternative, but for us, the secret to a long and happy marriage would be the gratitude.

We know why we are together, and our ‘why’ goes beyond the chickens and the gardens, the day trips and the inside jokes, even beyond the rib-crushing hugs and the belly laughs at bedtime. Our 'why" has everything to do with heart and home. Our ‘why’ means nothing and no one can come between us.

Not even the dog sleeping in the middle of the bed.