Today would have been our 45^th anniversary.

If I were a betting person, I would not have placed a dime on this marriage lasting.  Let me tell you why I say that.

December 21^st, 1973, Snohomish High School, a home basketball game. The games at home were always followed by a dance afterward. I was with my girlfriends at the dance when Mark came up and took my hand and off we went. Now if I were writing a script for a Lifetime movie I would say, “and we danced together for the rest of our lives.” But this most certainly is not a Lifetime movie.

Mark was a sophomore, and I was a junior, fifteen and sixteen years old, what are the chances of being together still together fifty plus years later?  Our oldest daughter was born the May before Mark graduated. Yes, that is correct, we had a child while he was still in high school. You are now understanding why I would not make that bet.

Mark worked for a year and then went to Central Washington University and when our daughter was two, I moved to Ellensburg. On January 19^th, 1980, we got married.

We had our struggles as most relationships do. We were two strong personalities, and we were trying to become adults while maintaining a marriage and family. No small feat. But we were both determined to succeed. We scratched and fought our way through with humor, hard work, and a willingness to seek outside help when we needed it. I believe the one thing that saw us through is that we truly were friends, and we liked each other.

“It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship, that makes unhappy marriages.” – Nietzche

Our family grew to six with the addition of two more daughters and a son. Those years flew by with school, sports, holidays, vacations, and family life. All our children became adults, and it was Mark and I on our own. I remember being about us being OK without any kids at home. We were more than OK. The love and friendship that had sustained us was still there and we built a stronger relationship than we ever had.

When Mark got cancer is when the bond between us became the strongest. I have heard it said that major events in a marriage cause you to become closer or grow apart. For us, it was definitely closer. A few details.

Mark’s cancer was chondrosarcoma, a form of bone cancer. We ended up at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minnesota where the leading surgeons in the world removed his right pelvic bone, hip, the top of his femur and various nerves and muscles. It was a 13-hour operation, but he came out of it cancer-free with a whole lot of titanium structures to replace what they had to remove. Someday maybe I’ll write the whole story, but it took a year to recover, with three additional operations, many setbacks, and a bunch of physical therapy. The Mayo doctors had told him he would need at least a cane for the rest of his life. He proved them wrong. He walked with a bit of an altered gait, but he walked on his own.

During his recovery I took care of him. I emptied wound vacuums and changed dressings. I gave him two shots in his abdomen daily and antibiotics in his pic line three times a day. I helped him take showers, which was an hour-long process. It was not easy maneuvering that large body into a small space! I dressed him and pushed him in his wheelchair wherever we went.

It was my honor to care for him and it just made us closer than ever.

We had come a long way from those two teenagers who had no clue how to develop a relationship or raise a child. We beat the odds.

The love I felt for Mark was more powerful in the last two years of his life than it ever had been. We were a team; we took care of each other. Unfortunately, it makes losing him even harder.

When I sit in my office that looks out at the field where we held his memorial it makes me so sad that I will never see him out there on his tractor again. When I feed the cows down at the barn, I get angry because it is his barn, and he should be here. He should be here today, celebrating our anniversary with me.

I have heard it said that grief and sadness get better with time. That is a lie, it does not. I miss him more than ever. The void in my life feels like physical pain. It is a void I can never fill, nor do I want to. It is a sacred space that he exists in, a place I can go to and feel him, I never want to lose that.

So happy anniversary my love. I would give everything I own to spend it with you.

Lyrics from Everything I Own by Bread

You sheltered me from harm
Kept me warm, kept me warm
You gave my life to me
Set me free, set me free
The finest years I ever knew
Were all the years I had with you

And I would give anything I own
I'd give up my life, my heart, my home
I would give everything I own
Just to have you back again