Marriage Story
Today marks 8 months since Michaela died. This week for me has been thinking about how thankful I am we got married. We never felt like it was something we needed as our relationship was full of love and investment in keeping a strong foundation so we didn’t need marriage. Still we talked about getting married many times over the 17 years together, but we just put it off.
We made plans for if we ever did get married. We wanted to get married in Taos. We wanted to rent a house with sleeping room for our family to come and stay. We wanted a courtyard where we would get married. We wanted to have make your pizza bar as it was a thing we did with movie and games nights at our house. We had visions of what it would be like - a shared dream. It would be us - our love and connection.
When Michaela was first diagnosed, right away she expressed we should get married. I replied, “we have time.” Our focus became cancer. It became our work and life mission. Everyday and every moment was working to fight the cancer. The thought of marriage was buried under it.
About 2 weeks before she died, we talked about it again. It was a serious conversation of practicality. One night, after her last infusion, I came into the bedroom to give her a pain pill. She sat up to take a drink of water. I stared at my beautiful partner as she smiled with love in her eyes as she was thanking me for taking care of her. Even in pain, she smiled and thanked me. I thought as I looked at her, “I will love you forever.” That our love will surpass time and space. Cheesy and mushy, but from my heart. I knew in that moment I wanted to be connected legally as much as we were by love.
I grabbed her hand and looked into her eyes as I asked, “will you marry me?” She blushed, smiled, and replied quite adorably, “yes!” She then said, “in Taos?” Tears came as I told her that we wouldn’t be able to have that dream, but that I hoped she would be happy marrying right at home. She nodded still smiling at me. Unfortunately that wasn’t even possible. We married in the hospital. She didn’t get to dress up and wear the pretty dress. The dress still hangs on the closet door. I haven’t been able to move it. When I look at it, I remember the look on her face when I asked her to marry me. It is a memory I carry with me. I am thankful we married and I carry her name now. Miss my beautiful love.
