Mawwage

​Mawwage is what bwings us togevah todaw.

Oh not mine, obvs. But a blessed union that resulted in the best author ever in the history of the universe thirty-six years of love and devotion. Thirty-six years of coming home to a Miller High Life (the champagne of beers) and a chat about the latest bullshit at the hospital. Thirty six years of early morning coffee dates in the living room. Thirty six years of my dad hastily picking up flowers from the grocery store and mom complaining because she didn't get a new vase. Two houses (that dad built), two kids, five dogs, and a whole lot of bickering and making up.

Damn, I'm a lucky kid.

My parents met on Pensacola Beach in 1976 or '77. My mom was very recently out of nursing school and my dad was working on the beach as a contractor-type person. They met when an ultralight aircraft crashed on the beach. My mother (always the helper) came rushing to the scene to see if anyone needed help. I'm sure there was a little bit of, "I'm a nurse!" She was a babe, too.

My dad was there with his sister Trish and my mom was probably like, "Screw the plane, who's this hot piece of man meat?" Then she noticed Trish and for some reason missed the Evans' trademark cheeks and thought Trish was my dad's girlfriend. The mistake was shortly cleared up and the two started dating. My dad's proposal was something along the lines of, "Hey, you wanna get married or what?" He's still that romantic to this day. /swoon.

They got married June 10, 1978 at St. Anne's Catholic Church in Gulf Breeze, even though my mom wasn't really Catholic (though apparently we neglected to tell my Catholic grandfather for about 20 years). My mom wore a rented or borrowed dress because she couldn't afford to buy one, and my dad helped pay for the wedding. But thirty six years later, they've accomplished so much together - and still actually love the crap out of each other.

Do they fight? Oh God Yes.

But it's amazing to me to watch how they can pick at each other, walk away and calm down, then come back and decide to forgive each other and move on to something else. The marriage that I saw growing up was about mutual trust and understanding, about maturity and recognizing when a fight is worth fighting and when it's just easier to forgive and forget. It's about the every day moments - like bringing home a phallic-shaped cactus (or Cocktus, if you will) because you know your wife loves plants and rocks, or keeping a set of beer mugs in the freezer because Florida is hot and Dad's been hard at work all day. It's about carving out time with the person that you love every day, bringing her coffee and the paper, and making him breakfast - even after the kids have been gone for 10 years. It's about the quiet conversations that you have with your daughter about how you're trying to do things for your wife to make her life easier, and about how you really, really wish he would get his knee replaced (HINT HINT DAD.)

It's about not killing your daughter for blogging about your marriage and having patience when she moves back in with you because she's trying to figure herself out.

More than anything, I think marriage - even just relationships - are about recognizing how your partner communicates their love. Some people demonstrate by flowers or flowery words. Others by small, simple gestures that show that even as busy as you are, your partner was simply on your mind. Sometimes that gesture is a text message of a very inappropriate cartoon featuring an inside joke that makes you smile, other times it's a Cocktus.

After all....Mawwage is a dweam wifin a dweam.

 

Love you both. Happy Anniversary.