Sunday, March 4, 2018

Truly Madly Deeply... Living in the Bonus

I will always think of you in the sunlight of the Ulm Cathedral. We were so young then. We climbed to the top and I laid flat on my back to photograph you in the archway with sunlight silhouetting your figure. You were my fairy tale, my muse, my somehow forbidden secret that I had to hold.

I think of you at breakfast in Moscow. We had leveraged everything we had to exist in that moment. We'd taken loans on our retirement, mortaged against our house, borrowed from our parents and our grandparents, and we had landed ourselves by the grace of God in Russia to take home our daughter.

Every single morning the Savage Garden song, "Truly Madly Deeply" played. I felt like the entire world found a solidity in that moment. My world was perfect. I was with you. We were there together. We were adopting our daughter. Truly... yes, we were fully committed with no pretense. Madly... oh yes, it required a bit of madness. And deeply... I was absolultely sinking in the thick depths of our commitment.

I see you, girl. There have been times that I've lost you. We've covered so much ground since 1992. You said, "Yes," though... and it's been together ever since. I thank God for clanging TGI Bells and onion soup. I thank God for secret earrings purchased on a snowy carriage ride Cincinnati night.

This week your dear grandparents passed. Together, only days apart. I'm taken back to their 50th wedding anniversary in the hall of Breiel Boulevard. They made longevity feel young. Pure. Fresh. Right. How perfect that they married the same year that our favorite movie, It's a Wonderful Life, was released. They lived out that movie. 

Where do we go from here? It doesn't matter. It's about who I am with you, what we've done to get us to this point, and the three children we've produced together. Everything else is just bonus.

We're living in the bonus. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQnAxOQxQIU&list=RDWQnAxOQxQIU&t=1

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