As I'm about to leave to go to church to honor my husband on the first anniversary of the worst day of my life, I am going to remember the happy times. I'm going to remember our amazing love story.
Today I am thankful for my love story. In 1998 I met Jared while working in the hospital. We made a bet and the looser had to take the winter out for margaritas. Needless to say I won the bet. We were enjoying our margaritas when Jared said we should go out on a real date sometime. So the next Saturday we went on our first official date to the Kentucky vs Gator game. When Jared and I began to get serious I had many reservations because I knew he had CF and I knew what that meant for my future. I actually prayed him away, I would pray Lord if this is not the man you mean for me to have, please remove him from my life. But you know what he was still there so I took the hint and trusted God.
In September of 2000 Jared and I were married. We used to joke that we got married in 2000 on purpose so it would be easy math for us to know exactly how many years we had been married. December of the next year he received his lung transplant in August of 2002 we took our first international trip to Italy. Before we got married Jared had never really traveled out of the country. But now we travel all the time. We went on cruises to the Caribbean, we went to Europe, we went to Central America, and we traveled all over the US.
In May 2004 God blessed us with our beautiful baby boy and we went from our family of two to a complete family of three. Our life became so intertwined with each other. We truly enjoyed spending time with you each other, spending time as a family. When we would go on vacations we would all go. It never even occurred to Jared and I to leave Steven home with relatives, a family vacation was just that... all three of us.
In July 2010 Jared received his second lung transplant. In the October he became very septic and almost did not survive. But the Lord gave us a miracle and he did survive. One of the big dreams Jared always had was to visit Scotland. I promised myself that if he survived the septic episode that we would take that trip. So in the spring of 2011 we all traveled to Europe. We spent a week in Spain and then spent two weeks on a tour traveling all through the UK. We made some amazing memories on that trip and met some wonderful people. One of my favorite memories from that trip was when we were at a sheep farm in Ireland and we saw the lambs be born. Steven came running over and said "mommy mommy I thought it was their penis but it was just their umbilical cords." Everyone cracked up because there was a six year old little boy using correct terminology.
We took many trips together. We traveled out west to go skiing every year, we would go to the beach every summer, every spring break we would take a vacation, everything Thanksgiving we were on vacation, if there was a school holiday we would use that time to travel and make family memories. We zip lined in multiple countries, snow skied and snow boarded in more than one country, and played in the ocean on 3 continents. People would say you are the most traveling family I have ever seen.
In spring of 2014 Jared was diagnosed with chronic rejection. We knew what that meant but we were still very hopeful that we could find a center that would give him a third lung transplant. For spring break, we spent 2 weeks in Hawaii. We surfed, zip lined, attended a luau, and took our first family helicopter ride. Then we decided to take the summer and make lasting family memories. We went on a Caribbean cruise and then we cruised around the Greek islands which allowed Jared to fulfill his wish of seeing the Parthenon. We then traveled to France where we climbed to the top of the Eiffel Tower, took a river cruise, and thoroughly enjoyed spending time with each other. One of my best memories of that trip was the night that Steven went to a pizza making party and Jared and I went to a wine tasting. Jared and I were the only two people who showed up for the wine tasting and we spent our whole evening tasting wine and just laughing. He tasted so much wine, Jared couldnt drive us home and I didn't know how to drive a stick shift so our resort took us home. The next day Jared decided I needed to learn how to drive a stick shift and off we went in the streets of Paris and he taught me to drive a stick shift. Loved that day.
When we got married Jared and I made a list of all the places we wanted to see. We made it our mission to travel enough and frequently enough that we could scratch all the items off of our list. We wanted to make sure the list was completed. And after 14 years of married life, we completed the list except for three things. So Steven and I have decided to finish the list.
Our memories together are what I treasure. This amazing story.
My amazing love story.
No comments:
Post a Comment