I don’t think that 2020 has been the ideal year for anyone but for me it has been another year together with Pauline, facing whatever this world has thrown at us, and that has made it another year to celebrate.
There have been ups and downs beyond our control, including terrible loss, but we’ve traveled the road, side by side. It’s been a mixture of the ‘for better or for worse’ that we agreed to all those years ago.
Twenty eight.
Twenty eight years ago on a very hot, Perth summer’s day, I put on a suit, went to church, and said goodbye to single life.
It was a very good decision and a very good day.
Best Day Ever
While it was a truly wonderful day with so many highlights, it wasn’t a perfect day. While friends and family were free to wear ‘summer appropriate’ clothing, Pauline was in a massive white dress and I was in a black suit. There was no way to escape the heat.
There were other little things that didn’t quite follow the plan for a perfect day but it was still the best day ever. It was the day that we had been waiting for. It was the day that, no matter what didn’t go to plan, we would be joined together ’til death do us part’.
Pauline and I had met in her mother’s kitchen on the 18th of January in 1992. On the 12th of December 1992, we were married.
Say ‘I do’ in ’92
As a bit of a joke, I had set my New Year’s Resolution at the end of 1991 to say ‘I do’ in ’92. That was never going to happen unless I found the perfect person to share my life. I had decided many years before that I would never ‘settle’ for anyone but the right one. Pauline was and is the right one. I truly believe that God brought us together and I thank him for such a beautiful gift.
Today we’ve been married for twenty eight years.
As the years have gone on we’ve added others into our family. In 1996 we welcomed Emily. James was born in 1998. Then, in 2017, Josh joined the family when he married Emily. It’s all part of the richness of our marriage and life together.
I often have to catch my breath when I think about the fact that I get to walk the journey of life beside such a smart, wise, clever, funny, beautiful, extraordinary woman who I love more than any other person on this big blue planet. I am truly blessed.
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Amongst the frantic pace of this time of the year I’m taking a little time out to reflect on the last couple of decades. It was almost twenty years ago, in January 1992, that I met an incredibly beautiful woman. I don’t know that I believe in ‘love at first sight’ but I certainly believe in ‘overwhelming, all consuming, attraction at first sight’. That attraction was the beginning of the best thing that has ever happened to me.