just the two of us.

thoughts on twenty-one years of marriage

Do you remember? It was just the two of us. No way could we have known just how clueless we were about relationships, about marriage, about forever. We were dumb-drunk in love.

That night we came back to our second-floor apartment in Charleston. Tired from driving six hours from our honeymoon. Gatlinburg, Tennessee. No, not the romantic destination people would think of. But we didn’t have money. No Caribbean cruise for us. No trip to white sand beaches. No laying in the sun while people whose names we can’t pronounce bring us colorful drinks with tiny umbrellas.

Do you remember? There was nothing exotic about it. But I didn’t care. I was so immersed in us to think about what was around us. We could have gone anywhere. Anywhere at all. Being with you was all I wanted.

We opened the door and there, sprawled across the tiny living room in our 700-square-foot apartment were stacks of gifts. White-and-silver wrapping paper. Items checked off registry lists. Envelopes with cards we prayed had enough cash for us to buy newlywed essentials: a lamp, a nice dinner out, maybe a few weeks’ worth of groceries. The $20 bills my grandfather kept slipping into my pocket the night before our wedding were long gone.

We were tired. The drive was long. We wanted to eat, to sleep. I had work the next day. Maybe you did too? I can’t recall. That was 21 years ago now. And we didn’t know that next day I’d be laid off from my job.

Do you remember? It would be my last week of a seasonal job. So I scrambled to look for something to supplement the meager part-time youth minister salary. I applied for a spot at the post office, work I was familiar with from my days in college. But I was young. Naive. Duped by a scammer selling a $70 interview guide I didn’t need. Turns out there was no post office job.

So the fall came and your senior year of school started and I got trained to be a substitute teacher for Charleston County. One day it was the high-end Wando High School, kids driving Beamers and Range Rovers to school. The next day it would be a middle school in North Charleston where I would arrive to teach P.E. Except the school was too poor to even have a gym. Getting sixth graders to do jumping jacks in their math classroom was more of a challenge than I signed up for.

I hated the days. The classroom with students who in protest returned blank quizzes to the desk. The classroom with students who smirked and ignored anything I had to say. This was where a four-year college degree had gotten me.

But the days were not too long. New work came. Seasons shifted. You graduated. We celebrated with your family. I think it was California Dreaming, the one by the water where the chicken strips are amazing.

Life was setting up. We were young but we were on our way. You began work at a fancy preschool. I started back at my seasonal job, splitting time with a Christian bookstore in the evenings and weekends. Youth ministry wasn’t my jam.

It’s all fuzzy now. What did we do on the weekends? Ones when I wasn’t working? Date nights downtown. Occasional trips to the beach. Our first anniversary laughing like kids at the Atlanta waterpark. There were date nights at the Starfire. Grabbing wings and fries from Wing Stop.

Then in October, we got the word. You were pregnant. We walked the neighborhood before calling our parents. The sidewalk closer to the right side of the complex, near old brick neighborhoods. To the left was a part of town I never wanted you to be in alone.

We walked. We talked. We wondered where in our 700 square-foot one-bedroom apartment we’d put a crib. We were still newlyweds. I’d call us that. Married a little over a year. Barely knowing anything. Funny how 21 years later I’m not sure I know a whole lot more.

Do you remember? We were freaking out inside. We told the pastor at church and he prayed for us. We were scared. Scared to death. Who’s ready for parenthood at 23? We weren’t. And we called our parents to share the news not sure how life would look.

Then not long after you had a miscarriage. And I didn’t know what to think. I felt guilty at feeling relieved. And you were quiet. I was quiet, There are never words to say.

And the following week we’d tell that same pastor what happened. And he gave us a sad look and hugged us. And life moved on. We moved on. We were six months away from packing up everything and driving six hours away to Knoxville. Another apartment, bigger this time. Colder weather. New jobs. New city. We didn’t know anyone. But God was there, just as he was in Charleston. Just as he was when we went from expectant parents to expecting nothing in just a few weeks.

All my details are fuzzy now. It’s been decades. But I remember several years later during Christmas time when the doctors thought for sure you were miscarrying again. Then eight months later we became parents. And we brought our baby girl home, laid her in her crib, and sat in a new silence while she slept. It was just the three of us.

Then not a year and a half later, another girl. Two under two. The days were long again, more so for you than me. But the moments when the sun shot golden rays through the blinds tasted like perfection. Diaper changes. Spit-ups. Middle-of-the-night bottles. Middle-of-the-night drives down the interstate to calm an inconsolable little one. Nights we didn’t sleep. It was just the four of us.

Do you remember? The early years? Marriage is never easy. No season of it is. And plenty of the seasons we’ve shared have been hard. I’m guilty of making them more so. And looking back some 21 years later, I can see even in my unknowing youth, even in my mid-life mistakes, God has been faithful. You have been faithful. For 21 years now.

And I couldn’t feel more blessed.