Our Sweet Sixteen

I remember the evening at Cody's apartment before we got married, when we sat down and mapped out our life.  We were engaged and naive and thought we had a clue.  He had just finished grad school, and I would finish my degree before we had kids, and even then we were going to wait a few years.  We'd travel to Europe.  We'd go backpacking in Spain.  We'd save for a house and buy one in the suburbs that had a big yard (kind of an oxy moron there).  We'd have four kids spaced 2.5-3 years apart and we'd have a dog and everything would be peachy keen.

Well, nothing has gone according to plan.  Nothing. Life has been anything but easy and predictable in our sixteen years of marriage and everything has been uphill.  Before July 2014, we were in a terrible place and came close to calling it quits because we were no longer compatible.  I'd changed.  I'd changed a lot, and he wasn't happy.  I wasn't happy.  In fact, we were both a couple of miserable roommates with five kids, a mortgage, and a slew of responsibilities and heartache and disappointments and we weren't going to do it much longer.  I think we were both waiting for the perfect time to split, but there never was the perfect time.  

And then what happened?  Our child died in an accident.

These last four years have been the most taxing years that I can imagine going through in life.  Even though we stayed together in the wake of his death, we've come very close to the brink of divorce several times since then.  There's a reason why so many couples get divorced after the death of their child.  Honest to God, it's the most stressful thing on a marriage.  THE MOST STRESSFUL THING. Everything about our lives changed that day and we've walked around in broken pieces and really, it's probably me who's pushed him away the most.  It's no secret that I loathe myself for what happened; that I had this one job, this ONE job, and that was to keep my children alive.  And did I do my job?  No.  Regardless of what anyone tells me, my job was to keep my kids safe and one of them died on my watch.

And that, my friends, is the worst kind of guilt and shame a parent can carry. 

And so, because deep down I hate myself so much, I don't want anyone else to love me.  I don't deserve love.  I don't deserve forgiveness.  I don't deserve to be happy.  I don't deserve to be given a second and third and fourth and fifth and sixtieth chance by my husband.  The demons that live inside me won't let me rest and won't let me feel relief. They scream really loud that I AM NOT WORTHY.  Sometimes I can inhibit their screechy little voices, but often times, they're too damn loud and it's all I hear.

But this guy right here.  This guy who sat across the table from me that night when we thought we had a clue about life, when we thought we had control, and when we thought we could make plans. That same guy has stuck with me, and I don't know why.  Maybe it's because he likes my boobs.  Maybe because it's too expensive to get divorced.  Or maybe it's because he simply loves me, even when I'm exceptionally unlovable.

He's the one who remembered it was our anniversary last week.  He's the one who came to me while I was busy working on our problematic house remodel and I was covered in calk and my hair was a mess and I wasn't wearing makeup and I stunk to high Heaven.  He's the one who reminded me that Wednesday was our anniversary and he asked what we should do, and I was under deadlines with school and had a hoard of theatre costumes to make and somehow, I needed to get the bathroom floor finished so we could install the toilet.   I asked for a rain check, and he agreed it was probably best to wait because we couldn't fit anything else into our crazy schedule.

But the next day, I told him to hell with it.  Let's go out, even if it's just to get ice cream.  And on the morning of August 1st, he'd already left for work but I woke up to balloons and roses that were sitting on a kitchen chair because there was no other place for them in our construction zone.  I hadn't even considered that it was our sixteenth, but he'd gone to the store early that morning and got the kids donuts for breakfast and me roses and balloons and a card with a note that made me start sobbing right there on the floor that was barely visible because of the tools sitting around. 

We chose simple.  We got the kids fed and then headed to this quaint little Italian bistro that we discovered a few weeks earlier.  I ordered tea and was delightfully surprised when it was served in a little pot, just like in the UK.  I was giddy and we sat and talked and laughed and I cried a bit.  And then we went over to Lagoon because we have passes and didn't have to pay anything, and all we did was walk around the Pioneer Village because it's my favorite place to go when we visit the park.  We got ice cream and held hands and sat on a bench and talked for an hour until the mosquitoes almost sucked us to death.  

We haven't talked like that in a long time.  We haven't talked about the BIG things in a long time.  The HEAVY things.  The God things and life and death things and I sat and looked at him and was reminded of that night at his apartment when I thought I loved him, but how I didn't really have a clue.  He's older and I'm older and we've aged about a century in these sixteen years, but my God, how I love him.  And how there's no one else in all of creation who will ever love my children the way he loves my children, and how we share a history that is priceless and hallowed.  

We rode only one ride, and it was the tram that takes you across the park.  It was finally time to head home to our minions, but we had a couple of errands to run on the way home.  When we pulled into the driveway, it was really late and all the lights were off.  I thought one of two things had happened- either the kids had been kidnapped, or they'd miraculously put themselves to bed.  When we walked in the house, it was silent and dark, but then they came around the corner and yelled "Happy anniversary!!!"

My eyes instantly filled with tears.  They'd made us a beautifully ugly cake complete with old candles they found in the pantry.  They got the flowers Dad had given me, and Devin was holding a picture of Garrett.  As they stood at the top of the stairs in our house that's hardly recognizable because of the construction and associated mess, my heart was pounding and the tears were flowing and I was instantly filled with so much happiness and it was odd, because our life is anything but easy right now.  But these people, the seven of us, are a team.  I stood there and was struck with the knowledge that we have been given this catastrophic trial to experience, but that we can get through it together and that even when it's harder than harder than hard, we have to keep going.  Garrett was there on the sidelines and that night, I heard him.  I heard him cheering so loud for us.  We haven't left him behind but rather, he's ahead of us and he's carrying us and it's up to us to let him. 

For just a moment, the Heavens opened and there was a quiet clam, as if a soft rain was falling on the burning places inside my soul.

So, happy sweet sixteen to us.  Life is hard and messy and ugly a lot of the time, but sometimes, your broken children make you a broken cake and it does much to soothe the broken pieces in your heart.