Twenty-seven

Twenty-Seven…

By John W. Vander Velden

 

There are numbers that stand out, and there are numbers that seem to blend invisibly into the row of integers.   Twenty-seven is one of those kinda’ insignificant numbers that carry little weight on its own, just not quite halfway between twenty-five and thirty.  But when I consider the journey of my life I find each day carries value, so why not twenty-seven years.

I look back…too often I will admit, and looking back I recognize a “sheer point” in my life.  Each of us has those moments, when everything changes.  I think it is important to dwell on those moments in the past that changed our lives.  I believe it helps us understand the place we find ourselves…at this moment.  But in any case, I think about a snowy Saturday afternoon when I stood at the front of a packed church and waited…not long, but I waited for my beloved to join me there. 

But that joining was more than two people standing side by side.  It was more than some spatial approximation, a closeness that could be measured by a ruler.  It was the joining of two lives, the binding of people promising each other a closeness unmeasurable.  The term cleave come to mind, the welding two individuals into one life.  Those that have not found themselves in that type of relationship cannot understand the depth and strength of that weld nor do they comprehend the freedom each part of that alloy receives from the joining.  But those, the fortunate, the ones that gain so much by surrendering just a mite of themselves, find themselves in calm agreement.

Twenty-seven years.  Years of challenges, years of striving, in the face of misunderstandings and hurt feelings, years of achievements, years of growth, years of support, and years of supporting.  Easy…not always…but easier than trudging on alone.  Time has made us as converging lines, coming ever closer together as the years pass.  The binding only began twenty-seven years ago.  The binding grows stronger each day with the knowing, the lessons life teaches, the time shared…the laughter as well as the tears.

I am not the same man I was twenty-seven years ago.  My beloved is not the same woman.  While I stood and waited, filled with fears and self-doubts, I could never have imagined the adventures we have shared since that day.  On that day one man and one woman became more than a couple, we became something bold, something new.  One plus one is so much more than two!

Some might say that twenty-seven years is a long time, but I, even when I look back, would not.  Time rushes on and my life will continue to change.  I know that this segment of my life’s journey has had its effect on me…it has made me a better man in so many ways.  I thank Jackie for that as well.  I thank her for the nine thousand eight hundred and sixty-two days…each and every one of them…we have shared.  But most of all I thank her for the love she has so freely poured on this undeserving man.

So happy anniversary my dear, perhaps twenty-seven years is no longer the beginning…but it is nowhere near the end!