Editor's Note: Laurel and I renewed our vows five years ago on our 30th anniversary. I wrote the following for that ceremony, and I have to say, I feel even more in love today than I was five years ago. As you can see, I had our children read our story, partly because I knew I couldn't, but largely because they are such an integral part of our lives. And yes, I'm the luckiest man alive.
The Nature of Love
Megan: Our father has asked us to expand on the nature of
love. Our role is two-fold. He knew that it wouldn’t be possible to do
this himself without crying like a little baby.
And so much of the nature of love for our parents relates to their
children, so it’s appropriate for us to be a vital part of this service.
Kelly: Our father chose 1st Corinthians, 13:
4-8. Thirty years is a long time, and
there are many memories, many life moments that shape a marriage, shape our
lives together. Our father chose four
moments, four snapshots that highlight the love that our mother has shown to
all, and the reason why, our father loves her so much.
Megan: Love is patient.
While there have been many ways that Laurel has shown great patience
with all of us, such as the purchase order policy, “goodbye I love you
goodnight”, “I cut off the sweaty parts”, it seemed appropriate to at least
start with some humor and focus on her favorite of all of her children,
Snickers. When the boys, particularly
Sean, fought so hard to get a puppy, we had no idea what we were getting
into. Snickers was the worst baby anyone
could imagine. While experts would tell
you, dogs will never go the bathroom in their crate, we found out the very
first night, Snickers hadn’t read the manual.
He stayed up most nights for his first three months or so, he hated his
crate, he teethed on our furniture and ruined it, he would pick, pick, pick at
the berber carpeting until he could get a good strand and pull it across the
room, so we eventually had duct tape throughout our family room. While Sean and Patrick and I all promised to
take care of Snickers, the
When I finally knew that Snickers had won her heart was one night when we were sitting in the family room watching TV. Snickers was out back, in the dark, and all of a sudden, you could hear him barking. For some reason, Laurel thought that Snickers was in trouble, and she leaped off the couch, running out the back door in her bare feet, screaming, “Snickers, Snickers”. He had won her over, and had become her favorite. Patience is a virtue, and Laurel definitely possesses this virtue.
Kelly: Love is
kind. There are many examples, but one
has always stuck with me, and it is from early in our marriage. We were at church at Westminster, sitting on
the center aisle of course. The ushers
were taking the offering, and there was a homeless man who had come into the
sanctuary and he was sitting a few aisles ahead of us. The usher tried to be kind and gracefully
move past the man, but all of a sudden,
the homeless man tugged at the sleeve of the usher’s jacket. He had a handful of change that he wanted to
put into the offering plate, and he got the usher’s attention to put his change
in the plate. Laurel instantly burst
into tears. I feigned ignorance and
asked her what was wrong, but she just shook her head and didn’t say
anything. After the service was over, Laurel
was still crying, and I asked her what was wrong. She said, “Did you see that homeless
man? He didn’t even have shoelaces in
his shoes, but he still took the change from his pocket to put in the offering.
If he can do that, how can the rest of
us be so selfish?“ I saw the love, the
compassion, the kindness that she has for others that day, and I’ve seen it
countless times over, whether it is Tawanna, B2B, or whatever small or
significant random act of kindness she does along the way.
Sean: Love bears all things.
When it comes to child bearing, if there is a normal, Laurel didn’t get
to experience it. The most normal child
birth along the way was the first, Megan, and she was a month late, at least
based on her due date. Megan came into
the world screaming, and she did a lot of that for the first several
months. We used to joke that Megan was a
patriotic baby because she always stayed up until the TV programming shut off
and they played the Star Spangled Banner at one or two in the morning (yes,
back in the olden days of TV). With
Kelly, Laurel ended up on bed rest for the last month or so, and had to endure
lying in bed, holding back the contractions.
With the boys, it became much worse.
Laurel had to endure about four months of bed rest, only allowed to
leave bed to take a shower each day. She
had to lie there all day, watching TV, doing crossword puzzles, whatever she
could do to pass the time, holding off the contractions, so that the boys could
grow enough to be born safely. I
constantly wondered, how can she do it?
How does she not bend, how does she not cheat, how does she endure
this? I asked her one day, and very
simply, she told me, “I just tell myself each day, if I don’t do this, they
won’t survive. That’s what keeps me going
each day”. I don’t believe I would have
been strong enough to ever suffer through this, but Laurel’s love for the boys
allowed her to endure those four months.
Her love for her children drove her to bear all things.
Patrick: Love endures all things. I wish I didn’t have to do this one, but to
completely cover the extent of Laurel’s love, this painful part of the journey
has to be addressed. At one point in our
marriage, I reached the conclusion that our marriage wasn’t working. I didn’t see a future for us together, and I
determined that it would be best for each of us to find our true soulmate, the
one who could make us the happiest.
Maybe I had watched too many movies, too much TV, not sure what it was,
but I believed there was something better, something bigger out there. I left, I became a vagabond of sorts. I lived on friend’s floors, in their spare
rooms, I eventually got an apartment of my own.
I spent a lot of time alone, soul searching, wondering where my life was
headed. I still remember the one
morning, getting up in the morning, looking in the mirror, and really not
recognizing the person looking back at me.
I was completely lost.
The whole time, Laurel never gave up, who knows why. I gave her every reason to give up on me, in
some ways I kept believing, if she were really smart, really strong, she would
just say the hell with me, and move on.
But she didn’t, she never gave up, she never gave in, she kept pushing
and pushing me to come back. I found out
how strong, how committed, how dedicated she was. She believed in our marriage, she was
committed to our marriage, and because of her ability to endure all things, we
are still together today. If it weren’t
for her, who knows what the girls’ lives would have been like and of course,
the boys would have never been born. Her
love and commitment changed our lives completely.
Megan: My commitment
since then has been to try to make every day of her life a better day than the
day before. I realize that I fail at
this most days, but that’s my commitment.
She gave me life when I didn’t deserve it, she gave me love when I
didn’t deserve it, and my goal, my purpose is to show her the love she deserves
for the rest of our lives.
Too many times, we believe that love is a storybook romance
like you read in books, like you see in movies.
True love is loving each other through all the difficulties, loving each
other when it isn’t easy to love each other, loving each other through the bad
times, as well as the good times. In my
mind, I have had a storybook romance, and I thank God for letting me be a
player in this story. Lou Gehrig once
famously said, “I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the
earth.” Lou Gehrig was wrong, he wasn’t
the luckiest man on the face of the earth, I am. Thanks be to God.
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