Celebrating 18 and 22 and 48

Last week Andy and I celebrated 18 years of marriage and 22 years together.  It doesn't really matter that he's been dead for the last 3 of those years.  I've come to realize that marriage doesn't end unless you choose to end it, and we didn't.  When he was alive our marriage was one of friendship, teamwork, joy and shared decisions.  While he has been dead our marriage still continues in those ways.  He's still my best friend, his decisions still matter, he still influences this team and shares in my life.  Of course not in the same ways. I can't cry on his shoulder, or tickle him in bed or watch him wrestle his teen girl to the ground.  But I can remember (or imagine) those things.  I can still feel him, hear his laugh, see his smile, know what he would say.  All the thousands of conversations we had over coffee, in the car, on hikes, in the kitchen, they changed who I am, how I present myself to this world, how I parent, how I think and process and move through the days.  Our marriage continues because he is woven into every fiber of my being, he is woven into the decisions I make now for this little family.  Because Jonel is not just Jonel, she is, and always will be, Jonel and Andy.

But wait, you say, how does this work when you grow to love someone else?  How can you be married to one person and in love with another?  Well, let me tell you, there is no monkey business going on here, no infidelity or illicit affair.  The man who loves me now loves me because I am Jonel and Andy.  The person he fell in love with is the person who houses another love.  She is the person with a hole in her heart that isn't looking to fill it, but has the capacity for lots more love.  She is the person who sees the world through a different lens since losing her husband to death but not divorce.  She is the person who can be happy AND sad, who can love every moment she had with her husband and all the moments she now has with a new love.  We are multilayered, complicated beings afterall.

So last week I got out the toothpaste and shined up the silver on the ring I've been wearing for 18 years.  It still lives there on my ring finger where he placed it that day long ago on the shores of Lake Superior.  And his ring, though I had a short moment of wanting to keep it for myself, still lives on his finger where I placed it that day as well.  We shall always be bonded in this way. The ring on my finger continues to say that my life was, and forever will be, changed by Andy.  That my marriage to him did not, nor will ever, end.  And one day, who knows, I may marry again, and then I'll have two husbands, but it won't be weird, it will just be how my life evolved through love and death.

That smile, the one where all my teeth hang out?  That's about as big as it gets.  My heart was full to bursting that day.  It still is.  My life is a billion times better because of this man.  My happiness now is everything he wanted for me.  He set me up to weather loss and keep moving through.  

Today is Andy's 48th birthday.  I'm grateful we earned some wrinkles and grey hair together.  We packed a lifetime into the years we had.  Forever thankful.