Today marks the passing of another year. One more year I have been married to the man who is my soul mate. The man who completes me. Who knows I am an airhead and usually has to come and find me if he hasn’t seen me in a while. The man who knows I am prone to quip random movie lines and still laughs after all of these years.

My Curtis. How I love that man. A love that is ever changing and ever growing. I can’t even fathom what words I could use to describe him.

I remember listening to this first song many, many years ago.  I loved him then, but not in the way I do now. Our love was new and fresh, but not guaranteed. But we loved fiercely.

Years would pass and children would come. We were tested not only in our relationship, but as parents and as parenting together. We didn’t and still don’t agree on many things, Parenting being one, but somehow we made it through. We continue to make it through.

Our littlest child, our little girl who is nine years old in just six days here was born AFTER I had a tubal ligation. Yes, after a tubal. A sterilization. I had my tubal when our middle son was born in June of 2006. By February of 2007 I was convinced something was dreadfully wrong. I was so sick all the time. I went to the Dr and he said I was pregnant! I was rushed to an emergency ultrasound as the chances were very high that I had an ectopic pregnancy, since I had a tubal done.

Sitting there in the Dr.s office faced with so many worries. If it was ectopic, it was still a baby and there would be no saving it and I would need surgery or drugs to ‘remove the pregnancy’, if I did not ‘remove’ the non-viable fetus I could and likely would suffer “catastrophic hemoragging and die. The technician is looking for the baby and lo and behold…There she was. Perfect little heart beating and right where she was supposed to be.

I came stomping out of the office, all grumpy and there my Curtis is SKIPPING, yes skipping down the sidewalk whistling. “What the hell is your problem?” I yelled at him. He turned around with the most glorious, handsome and definately all male pride smile, “I’ve got sperm of steel” and off he went. Skipping to the car.  I couldn’t help but smile too. That shithead.

He enlisted in the army, and he had to go in for testing the day I was scheduled for a C-section. In the days leading up to our daughters birth, his mom and I were so worried about him. God, we were scared. Proud of him for sure..but so damn scared. We listened to this song just to make ourselves miserable, but yet know that this man- her son and my fiance was one hell of a good man, out of  millions of great many who have served in our military.

 

How hard it was to kiss him goodbye that day to head to his asvab testing.  For some reason, he wasn’t able to enlist.

Our daughter barely muttered any words for months and months. You could tell she was a brilliant little thing, but I asked the doctors many times why on earth didn’t my baby say ma-ma and da-da. She just didn’t babble like the boys did. Barely a peep. We were getting kind of worried. Until one morning…

One morning about  the time we normally got up, she was about 10 months old I guess we heard a “hey” from her crib in our room. And then clear as a bell, a little girls voice rang out, (While stomping her foot) “Daddy! Dum here Daddy!” And pretty much from then on she never stopped bossing people around. What a great little girl. Takes after her mom!  🙂

 

We had some fights back in those days. We never yelled in front of the kids. Ever. We would sit in the bathroom with the door closed and whisper argue. After one of these very emotional whisper arguments we almost ended it. A day later, I came home from work and he sat on the edge of the porch step and pulled me close to him and sang me this song under the stars.

I was at fault too. We made silly mistakes back then. Kid kind of mistakes. Saying the wrong thing. Hurting someone just because you were hurt. Overall, it is amazing we never did breakup way back then. We knew we loved each other. That never changed, but we both had terrible habits of hurting the other one. Being rude. Being sarcastic when understanding was needed instead. Being spiteful when concern is what was needed.

It took many years but we got over that mostly. We still argue, we probably always will, but we have learned how to  deal with that.

Years would pass and there was stretch there when our work schedules were so different and we only saw each other for a couple hours here and there. It was a tough time.

We finally got our schedules sorted out and Curtis went for his first day job in a while. He came home and said I have a song for you.

Oddly enough, my girlfriends and I used to swoon over George Strait and always wished for a man that would think this song of them..and then, my man came home and sang me this song. He told me he thought about me all day, and couldn’t wait until he got home. Home to me.

 

How blessed I am to have a man that loves me like he does. Like women dream of. Sigh…

 

Our life isn’t all sunshine and roses. Some years back it was discovered that Curt’s Dad fell victim to a terrible accident and passed away. Because of the nature of his injuries, his identity was not known for a long time. It would be about nine months until anyone would know that his father had died. We had our own wake here at The Party Cabin and we played a song for his dad.

His dad was his own man and did his own things. He loved one woman, Curt’s mother, with the fierceness that only love can bring. He loved her, but in the end, his own demons in the form of alcoholism.

We played this song for his dad at the wake we had. At the end of his life, looking back on everyone that he had touched in his life…all those who had loved him when love just wasnt enough. But some are destined to leave this world earlier than others. While you are sad and will miss them forever, still honor them. Some find comfort in a bottle. We know it really isn’t comfort and we know the ultimate end for that disease, but honor them anyway. Sometimes their demons are just too much.  Not everyone is born to be a king…but love them as though they were.

 

Around this same time, the kids too fell into the music scene. We aren’t really musical, persay…we just love all kinds of music. The kids fell in love with a song and they sang it and sang it and acted it out. It is such a cute little ditty that I must include it in our musical. It is so stinking cute! It was even cuter a few years ago when the kids still had problems  saying their words right.

There is also a guy that dances on the big round haybale. I tried and tried to get Curtis to dance like that for me. He always says no.

 

Sometime in there we got married. Yes, after we had kids and “lived in sin” for quite some time. Our engagement happened late at night years ago. I sat on the edge of the bed and got ready for bed. He came up, tipped my chin up and said, “I love you baby” then he got down on his knee at the edge of our bed and said simply, “Will you marry me?”

I always thought that when I got married I would want some kind of over the top proposal, but the way it happened, it was perfect. It was perfectly Curtis to be so kind, gentle and such a simple request. I realized that his simple question was so much more heartfelt than any pomp and circumstance could ever be. This is me. This is Curtis. This is us. Uniquely us. I love that man far more today than I did back then.

We got married and had all our friends here. We had so much fun hanging out that we nearly forgot we were supposed to perform a ceremony for everyone who came. It was about an hour later that we decided that we probably should have a wedding ceremony for everyone that showed up. Oops! It was the kind of incredible party that the Preacher man who married us lost his pants that night. Yes. And as time went on he became one of our best friends.

We scurried through the ceremony in fast forward so we could get back to the  party! We walked to this song here. The song however, was not on fast forward. we just walked real fast down the aisle. Both our sons walked momma down the aisle. It was beautiful. My sons and husband were so handsome and our daughter was beautiful.

 

Curtis never really liked Dropkick Murphys. Obviously, his taste in music isn’t nearly as awesome as mine.

Another couple years would pass and it was New Years Eve. It was changing to 2015. Us, our ‘preacher man’ and his wife (how he lost his pants at the wedding) and several of our friends were all there. Our two good friends Cory and Tyler would die just four months and five days later. But that night we all counted down to midnight and we each picked one single song that summed up our entire year.

We had all sorts of songs playing that night. I don’t even remember what song I picked to play for the group, I just remembered Curtis played this song. For me. For his whole year. To look back on his entire year, and play a song for our entire group of friends who were assembled. He played this song just for me. I felt bad, because I picked a song that wasn’t just for him. He picked this song for his entire year. I love that man.

 

And now here we are. Years and years have passed. I love this incredible man even more today than I did so long ago. We have grown together, learned together. More importantly we learned to live with each other and for each other. This great man, my Curtis is our family’s whole world. Still the apple of his mom’s eye and has our hearts. I am blessed. Whats more, is that I KNOW I am blessed and that not everyone has this kind of love.

I know not to take it for granted. I know it takes a hell of a lot of work and compromise. That we are going to argue. That we are going to disagree, but together we can do anything. We can accomplish anything. We are Larinna and Curtis. We are Mom and Dad…We are together.

To end my musical I leave you with one single song. Its a song that sums us up, sums up the best nights of my life with our good friends. Cory, Tyler, Deni, Ben, Lynn, Karen, Jiffy and all of you. And to my Curtis, I love you. You are my wonderwall. we’ve spent years singing this karaoke with all our friends and it never gets old. You hold my heart.