Our love story started with a single red rose held in the hands of an out of placed man, who would be standing at my front door awaiting our first date. Afterwards came our first kiss and I was sixteen once again. We both were scared and didn’t want to get hurt, we had kids and for us, that was more love then we both could handle. Through we were “meant” to be parents, we were not meant to be alone. So as our courtship grew, we did too, allowing our children to go to the movies with us, allowing them to share in what was good, clean and a safe friendship for everyone involved. Our personal love was not part of the sharing, our children never saw us even lying across a bed talking much less anything else, no, we played old school, and the funny thing is, it worked. There were times when we all had a sleep over, the boys in one bed, the girls in the other and it stayed that way until we got married. So our children were allowed to be part of the magic, they saw smiles and hugs. They felt love all around them because they were part of the love story. We blessed our food and ate together we talked, we were building a family from the ground up the hard way. This was the beginning of the rest of my life, for it was bigger than just two hearts coming
Together as one, it had grown to six that is what makes our love story so special. In one year Joe did everything right, he bought me flowers, cards, said all the right things and our dates became family affairs. He loved my children, as I his, because he wanted too, because he didn't’ have too. The man had my heart from the beginning. More than that, he made my dreams come true. He made me a wife and mother of two sets of twins. For our reasons there was no other mommy or daddy, we were what was left, all we had was the makings of what “was once two separate families“. It wasn't’ the easiest way to make a new family but it made for one of the strongest families I know. On March 15th 1980 we were married in my parents’ house, our two, boy/ girl babies, only 9 months apart, had the chicken poxes but our oldest boy/ girl children, 20 days apart, stood by us as we wed. On that day we became a real family, no “Alice” but a bunch just the same. I had my dream, a loving husband, wonderful father and I became an adoring wife and mother. We all knew in that family of six, that love with thicker then blood. Married on a Saturday drove off for one night together and back again to be parents of a beautiful family that we was started. We melted together me and him, as if we were the chosen ones all along. Eventually our children were adopted and given proper names as we begin our true love story through time. In 1983 my son wrote an essay that won me recognition of mother of the year in the city where we lived. His tender story shared his devotion of what it meant to have the happiness and unlimited loving care of a mother; this was only three years into the marriage and before the adoption. I still saved his hand written words close to my heart and locked for safe keeping. In 1980 Joe and I felt it was best for our family of 6 if I could be home to raise our children, so I opened a home day care that lasted for more than 20+ years. Our home was the place all the kids wanted to stay, play and even live from time to time. We were the nexus, dad whistled and we all came running, even me. The father was and still is the head of something wonderful, am at his side. Something out of a Rockwell painting, a pure, real, safe and a loving home brought happiness to us and others who could see it and feel it. After 30 years, it’s still there. Joe and I raised our four children, never took a vacation without them. We kissed their booboo’s, walked away when they took off their training wheels and cried for them over broken hearts. After 30 plus years of being in love, we are still the nexus, the solid ground for them to come home to. Now they have their children and we are grandparents, they think it’s funny to see us kiss and hold hands. We have eight grandchildren and it all started because two people fell in love. We put our foot down and took the vacancy sign off the front door, it‘s our time alone. Now the sign reads grandchildren spoiled while you wait. They all know we have our Friday date night with pizza and popcorn sitting in front of a big screen T.V with surround sound…together just him and me but we have to laugh because after all this time, one of those kids will still call us right in the middle of movie forgetting we have that time to ourselves. That’s ok, we never tell them it’s the wrong time to call, after all what family is for?
I am written this essay as the love story for it is full of memories I will never forget. A box full of baby teeth I have no idea who’s. A drawer full of every love notes Joe wrote to me 30 years ago. That old glass ball with a rose inside, a gift after 13 weeks of dating sits in its place of honor. After 18 years of marriage we molded our hands together in plaster holding hands forever, it sits by our picture. But true love, real love shows when you’re getting older and one of you is sick and the other is up all night feeding you ice chips. Not as romantic as rose petals on bed of satin sheets, that lasts for only moment in time. After 30 years, it’s a lifetime in a moment. The night lasts longer for you inhale every breath to smell the roses, spent more time touching the face of the one you love as you are making a memory and reliving why you fell in love in the first place one kiss at a time forever. Like I said this is a love story of the rest of my life. I love you Joe.
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