Eleventh anniversary
Here we are. Eleven years ago today I was getting ready to get married.
It had been a busy week. Our chosen venue, which had been undergoing renovations, wasn't finished yet. On either Sunday or Monday evening we executed the final veto and had a couple of days to organize a backup for the ceremony and reception.
That was fun.
But on the day of, things were planned. There wasn't too much that could go wrong at that point. I mean, technically I think there was a low possibility of a thunderstorm around the time we'd be having the actual ceremony outside at the farm, but it didn't happen.
I remember thinking that morning. I was sitting there and going over everything I knew about Hillary. It had been a while since I'd done much reflection and it seemed like the appropriate time. What better day to consider and honour your very soon to be spouse.
I thought about how much better she was than me. I thought about how well we worked together, though the phrase "Team Taylor" hadn't yet been spoken aloud by either of us. I thought about her medical issues in that context. I thought about how much of my day to day enjoyment of life revolved around scoring points with Hillary. I thought about how much I loved making her laugh. And I thought about the vast tree of possible futures in front of us.
I don't know if Hillary did something like this on that morning eleven years ago. Either yes or no would fit perfectly well with what I knew of her.
By the time we were underneath that tent, we were both in the moment and ran through the rest of the day as passengers. Swept along in the current of people and events. We talked about this later and until her last year, this was one of the very few days that I know Hillary was just living it.
This was exactly the way we wanted to do that day. Have everything setup so we could just float through it.
So here I am. Eleven years later. I thought about my first anniversary without Hillary that morning. At that point, I figured I could safely bet on thirty years. I got ten.
The last couple of weeks leading up to today have been some of my most difficult since Hillary died. I'm not a wreck like I was for those first couple of months. The shock and immediate pain has faded. It's a deep ache now, which is some ways is worse.
What's going to get me through this is knowing how good of a relationship I had. There was so much more I wanted to experience with Hillary, but I didn't have any unfinished business, you know? That probably doesn't make much sense.
On a day like today, that's also the worst part. We were both pretty great at being married. We were fantastic together.
We did good Hillary.