A Particularly Personal Post

It’s a new year… new life.

I have been working on a limited schedule for the past month since my husband was initially hospitalized at the beginning of December.  As we both get on to the business of living our lives again, I find myself more reflective and conscientious of life’s delicate balancing act.  He’s returning to work today, which is just yet another miracle in what seems like a book of them this past month.  This is a big day.

It’s a new year… new life.

As I reflect, I am reminded, once again, how love, given and received, gives us amazing strength and courage.

In the past few years I have had the pleasure of covering beautiful love stories, but in the past month, my internal lens turned inwards as my husband’s life swayed on an precarious ledge.  It was time to put down the camera and hold hands.  It surprised me how naturally it came.  Photographers tend to see life a little differently sometimes.  I think I learned something about that too, but I’ll save that for another post.  I want to keep this post simple.

I  confess that I took my own marriage for granted at times.  I didn’t mean to, but I guess it happens when two people have been together for awhile.  Maybe it’s supposed to be that way so we can focus on other things… I don’t know.   The only thing I can say, for certain, is when a neurosurgeon looks at you and tells you that there is nothing she can do for your husband and that you need to start praying and calling family– well you change.

Deeply. Irrevocably.

You make promises.  You bargain.  You make those phone calls…

Then, at some point, you realize that you are both still breathing, still holding hands and that your best friend is still cracking jokes and smiling at you with that smile.  You realize that the sun has come up day in and out while it felt like the world was simultaneously standing still and spinning out of  control.

Then you make more promises, but this time to each other.   To be grateful.  To live life and remember that love is precious and needs to be cared for.  You reminisce and look forward, just like you did as your love was beginning.

Marriage starts with one brave and courageous leap of faith met by another.  Then it grows and evolves and if you are very lucky you get a second chance to remember how beautiful your love is.

So here is to the new year… new beginnings, love and life!

Happy New Year!

May you all be fearless and embrace life.

Or as my husband says “live everyday like it’s shark week.”