Anniversary #36, travel, Mama

At 2 pm this afternoon Mama and I will have been married thirty-six years. I had wanted to do something special, but Mama is not capable of too much right now. We will celebrate somehow, but it won’t be a big thing. We have talked about going to Roatan while we are in Honduras this Fall as our anniversary present to each other, but that is still only in the discussion stages. Based on how things are progressing financially right now, it is a potential prospect, but not a sure thing. As the medical bills continue to come in, something like that loos discouragingly far away. On the bright side, what is it like to be married thirty-six years? It is impossible to put into words all the trials and victories, all the conversations and times of prayer and answers to those prayers, all the miles we have traveled together and all the sights we have seen, all the private jokes we have between us – the silent knowing and secret language spoken between two separate individuals who share a lifetime commitment to each other.

I love her more deeply now than when we married one Sunday afternoon thirty-six years ago. Our lives are wrapped up so profoundly in each other that we do not think of ourselves individually. It is a unity that is impossible to describe. We live for the dual purpose of honoring God and maintaining that unity. We will not leave a big mark on this world, but we want the mark we leave to recognizable as one of commitment and cherishing. We have not always been in agreement, nor have we always avoided argument, but we have always struggled through to the point where the offender asked forgiveness and the offended forgave. As the song so appropriately says, “we’ve had more gains than losses and we’ve known more joy than hurt, as His grace rolled down upon us undeserved. God’s been good.”

I was on the road with one of our salesmen from work Monday and Tuesday. We visited clients and potential clients in South Texas so much of the time was spent getting there and getting back, but we did have really good sales calls. Two of the three were follow up calls. The third was a first meeting with the potential client. On all three meetings I was able to contribute – “add some color” as the salesman I was traveling with put it – but I am not completely convinced it was a good use of my time. If he feels that it was, then I am good with that. There was some discussion around making this a part of my responsibility within the company. Using me as a subject matter expert to help in sales where such insights would benefit the client contact, but I do not know where that will go. It would require far more travel and my current supervisor has been careful to let me stay at the office in deference to Mama’s recovery. That has been nice.

Especially since, getting back yesterday evening about 8 pm, I felt like it put a little too much on Mama while I was away. I will have to spend the rest of the evenings this week catching up to farm related items that are too much for her to do on her own. Most of the tasks are not difficult, but each requires a certain amount of time on her feet to accomplish. She has a very limited ability to offer much in that just yet. I am concerned about the next surgery which will fall near the time I am scheduled to spend a week at a workshop in Alabama. I should be more excited about the workshop than I am. Instead, I am concerned with the timing and how it could potentially overlap Mama’s surgery. There is no one at the company who can effectively teach the classes at that workshop besides me – which exposes a concerning lack of depth in our ability to support our instructor led training. But I may not be here long enough to correct that issue. Time will tell.

For now, our primary focus is on Mama and getting her back to full mobility.