Boxes of our Life

This blog post has been breweing inside of me for some time now. I pretty much started when we decided to move to Chicago. Since that decision, we have had many opportunities to reflect on old houses, old Apartments and our collection of belongings. We have essentially been running through our 22 plus years together as bot a couple and a family.

The videos are priceless. I think we heard this somewhere recently and it hit home ( or we may have just said it ourselves - who knows - we can be poignant at times ), but "we had little but we had so much". There were so many happy times that weren't major holidays or birthdays. Just time spent as a family. The girls singing all the time. If not childrens songs, then singing along to something we played on the stereo. It seemed to be such a biog part of their lives. No wonder they both excelled in choir and that damned Sing Star game is so popular in our basement. There are grea videos of just time spent together. You may not remember my "day off" but I certainly do and having it on video made that skipped day of work worth the time. My only regret is that there isn't much video of the two of us. However, what I have seen of you on the tape only reminds me how amazing you have always looked.

Going through the boxes in the basement was really terrific fun. It made me happy, sad, joyous and scared all at the same time. Literally every box had some kind of memory in it of some kind. A drawing here, a story there, maybe a book report or just a hand written card that said "i love you mommy". That we saved almost everything turned out to be very important. There is no way to remember all of that without looking back at the actual stuff. The girls will one day spend a day like we spent doing exactly the same thing. They will show their kids and they will save their kids stuff in the very same way.

We have created a lifetime of memories together. Our family - the one you and I crafted - may not be perfect, but it is pretty spectacular. Our girls may take for granted how happy their lives have been, but I think they know how much we did for them. How much we did for us. How no matter what the odds, we always came through with the right things at the right time.

Thank you for making my life so happy. I know you believe in God's plan. His plan certainly included us being happy the past 22 years, and it will have us even happier for the next 50 or so.

You're the world to me. I love you more than anything in the world.