[a moment] to reflect on twenty-six years

[moment 13]

My husband and I celebrate our twenty-sixth anniversary today - our second pandemic anniversary. Hopefully by our thirtieth (if I make it that far) we'll be able to get together with family and friends and have a huge celebration. Not this year. This year, however, I'll celebrate the moments that have made up those twenty-six plus years.

There was the moment when I was nineteen and met this guy and had the thought, "I'm going to marry that guy," and then brushed it off.

There was the moment in the computer lab at Susquehanna University where I was compelled out of my seat despite my extreme introvertedness and introduced myself to a very familiar looking (and very attractive) young man.

I will never forget the moment I was in my dorm room and the phone rang and it was Jim, and he asked me "guess what?" and informed me he was coming to visit me for the weekend - the weekend our relationship formally began.

There was the moment when we were twenty and walked into the field near our house one night and he proposed.

The moment my Dad asked me if I was ready as I was about to walk down the aisle to get married when I was twenty-one, and my heart leapt excitedly as I held back tears and responded, "yes" is just as precious to me as the moment I said "I do." 

The moment we, at age twenty-three, found out our first baby wasn't to be was heartbreaking for both of us and the love and concern for me in his eyes will stay with forever.

The moment weeks before turning twenty-four when I gave birth to Alex was terrifying, as doctors and nurses did all they could to get him to breathe on his own. The moment I heard his first cry was absolutely jubilant. 

Nine months later, the moment we walked into the house we had just bought and realized the magnitude of what we had just done was both exciting and daunting.  

The moment I found out I was pregnant with our second child at age twenty-five (and not dying, as I was so exhausted I figured it was one of the two) I was very much relieved.

When I was twenty-six. the moment  my husband casually mentioned the possibility of having another child, my heart nearly leapt out of my chest. 

The moment our third child was born  (I was twenty-seven at this point) in the birth tub at the birth center was such a joyous celebration. 

Done having children (or so we thought), we spent the next couple years of moments filled with working, homeschooling, and raising three young children. 

The moment I found out my thirtieth birthday present was child number four, I was beyond emotional. 

Our fourth child was born at home, and there was a moment as Jim and I lay in our own bed with the baby, hours after baby's birth, that I felt completely at peace. Jim leaned over to me and said that he felt like we were forgetting to do something or had forgotten to do something. There was no busy-ness about the birth and the days afterwards - no nurses and doctors checking this and that - just us and our children and our midwives' gentle care.

The next couple years were a rollercoaster of some of the best and worst moments as I did my best to raise and homeschool four young children while battling unknown health issues. 

Thirty-two years old with four children, life was chugging along when, in a moment everything changed - child number five was on their way.

The next eleven years are a blur of health issues and various diagnoses for myself and some of our children. I miscarried twins days after my husband got a vasectomy, was diagnosed with multiple disabling autoimmune and genetic illnesses, and have had varying mobility issues. We added various "bonus" children to our family. We endured extremely rough and celebrated incredibly joyful moments along the way. 

When we were forty-three, our second-born child let us know she is transgender, and in that moment I was incredibly thankful she finally felt ready to embrace her true self. The next year our middle child took a moment on their seventeenth birthday to announce they are non-binary. We gained more members of our family through our daughter and middle child's significant others. The year after that we discovered we're a house full of queers with a token straight guy, as the rest of our children let us know they identified as one or more of the letters of LGBTQIA+.

When we were forty-six we celebrated our twenty-fifth anniversary in month eleven of a global covid-19 pandemic. There was a moment on that day when I was both deeply saddened for the state of the world and that our plans for a big twenty-fifth anniversary celebration couldn't happen. Nevertheless, our children helped us celebrate with an annibirthary party.

Now we are forty-seven years old and celebrating our twenty-sixth anniversary. I hope my husband is taking a moment of his break at work to read this and reflect with me on the past twenty-six years. 

We've had some amazing moments, and some really tough ones, too.  Our marriage is far from perfect, but we love each other through our mistakes and imperfections. We forgive and learn and move forward. Sometimes we take a few steps backward and start again. But that's what love is about. We aren't just growing old together, we're growing, together.