“Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.”

— James Arthur Baldwin

Twenty-six years ago today, I married my best friend.  It seemed a bit crazy at the time to think that we could bring my two children and his one into this cauldron of promises, stir it a few times and serve up a family at the close of the day.  As each of us began for the second time the journey of marriage, we knew that we were choosing an unconventional path that would lead us in many new directions.  There is no doubt that the adventure has been more exciting, more difficult, and more fulfilling than we ever could have imagined as we walked hand-in-hand from reciting our vows and into the unknown.

Since that day — my sweetheart thinks it is fitting that we married on Pearl Harbor day, because he says he never saw it coming — we have added four more children to the pot with just a pinch of resident grandchild for a little spice.  We have parented our way through the 80’s and 90’s, past the millennium, and into the 21st century.  We have seen our children laugh and cry, struggle and soar.  We have seen them become parents themselves, and we have smiled as we see ourselves in the mirrors of their lives.  We have laughed, we have loved, we have argued, we have reconciled; but most importantly, we have done it together.  Love in the trenches removes the unnecessary masks we wear.  It frees us from needing to be anything more or less than who we are.  Through it all, just as we began on that long ago day, we have held fast to each other and made the journey ours.  Unmasked, exposed, and often tired at the end of the day, we still take hold of each other’s hands and know that there is not another person we would rather travel with.

Our parents have grown old; and it occurs to me today that at the end of the next 26 years, we will be their age.  It is hard to imagine that so much time has passed and even harder to think that the next 26 years will fly by so quickly and find us where they are today.  They adventure continues, and I know we have many more unexpected adventures lying ahead.  What is important is that we face them together and remember to hold fast.  Unmasked and standing side by side, we look back on the ways our love has grown.  We face the future together, ready for whatever comes.