Happily Married

Before I get started, I want to say how thankful our whole family is that my nephew Owen is o.k. Without going into a great deal of detail, my nephew - who suffers from Autism - escaped from a fenced in yard while under the supervision of a babysitter and made it all the way to a major road before a good citizen stopped and grabbed him. This is one of my biggest fears. My son, like my nephew and a lot of children with Autism, doesn't realize the dangers of wandering off. So, tonight I give a little prayer of thanks that my precious nephew crossed paths with someone willing to stop and help a little child.

Today my husband and I celebrated our 12 year wedding anniversary. I could go on and on about how wonderful my husband is: supportive, loving, sensitive, devoted...but all of those tremendous qualities are not what has made our marriage so successful. We have been faced with more challenges in our 12 years of marriage than most couples face during the entire course of their relationship, and through it all we have continued to make our marriage a priority. We cherish each other and never miss an opportunity to tell each other how much we care. But maybe there has been more...

I can't help but think about how much our families have helped us over these past 12 years. My parents caring for me & my newborn son during chemo so that Bill didn't have to quit his job; watching our children occasionally so that we could go out for a few hours and take a much-needed break; helping financially when the costs of our children's therapies were more than we could manage alone; and the list goes on and on. Maybe we would have been able to weather all of these storms alone, but I'm glad I'll never have to find out. So, today I want to thank my husband for never failing to make me feel beautiful and loved - and thank our families who are always there when we need them to help lighten our load in any way they can. A good marriage requires work and dedication but it sure is a lot easier with the faith and support of a loving and supportive family.