Our 13th Anniversary on December 13th, 2010

Today is our 13th Anniversary and it falls on Monday, December the 13th. I'm at home alone while my husband is at work. We had snow all day yesterday, that wet, heavy snow that bends the branches down and makes driving so dangerous, slipping and sliding along the hiways and biways. So today is a good day to stay inside and bake.

My husband's favorite dessert is chocolate cake. Many evenings after he compliments me on the supper I prepared he will mention that what would make it perfect would be the chocolate cake waiting in the kitchen. Of course there is no chocolate cake waiting in the kitchen but tonight there will be. As we both don't need to eat a lot of cake or any other dessert for that matter I usually divide the batter into two pans and freeze one. Having a dessert hidden away in the freezer comes in so handy at times.

This coming Wednesday, we head up to Parry Sound so my husband can have an operation on his left knee. The surgeon is going to scrape the inside of his knee (the meniscus) and hopefully the pain my husband endures will be no more. If this operation doesn't work then he will probably face a knee replacement down the road. We are certainly putting our hopes into Wednesday's procedure. Many days I've seen him limp along, not giving up from anything he wants to do but suffering in the process.

From the night we met at a single's dance at the Legion here in town he has done all in his power to look after me. To do the hard slugging for all my gardening projects, to make me wonderful benches or blanket boxes or bathroom cabinets in his workshop. He seems to have the knack of anticipating my needs before they are spoken of. I do not drive so he has to drive me to appointments when he can or else I walk. He takes me shopping and we've devised a way to make it less painful for him as he hates shopping. He drops me off and comes back in an hour or two or three, however long I deem to need that day.

As I think back on our relationship that involves a blended family, my two adult children and his two adult children who were teenagers when we met, it has not always been easy. There have been some royal battles but the end result was that we solved them and came out on the other side. Sometimes blasting away at each other in anger, we just couldn't resolve much, so we would resort to writing notes or in my case "letters" (I'm long winded). We could read calmly what the other was feeling and trying to say which really helped. Sometimes it's a long and winding road to get to a better place in a relationship and I think we have achieved that.

I have a girlfriend that I met when we were three years old. We go back a LONG way. She once told me: "I've heard you laugh before, but I've never heard you laugh like you do since you met Jim". My laughter is full of joy, the kind that bubbles up and spills over. I'm happy to say we can still make each other laugh. Sometimes the teasing I can do without, but he gets such a kick out of it and his laughter seems endless. Love is so much about anticipating each other's needs, trying to meet those needs, trying to make each other happy. Love is an action.

For thirteen years as often as we could we have kept Friday night as date night. The one night of the week that is set aside for us, when we try and give each other our full attention and I still feel special that night having my husband all to myself. Sometimes we are joined by other couples and we go dancing. There is no place I'd rather be than dancing with my honey as that is how we met. Dancing even while there was no music to dance to, just the music we heard in our own heads. Life can be like a dance, sometimes all jumpy and jarring, sometimes slow and graceful, sometimes just standing in one spot holding each other and moving silently to the beat of our own hearts.