9 years

Today is our 9 year Anniversary!  Truly one of the best days of my life.  (The picture below is from our rehearsal dinner...yes, I was blond, skinny, and tan.)
I knew when I met David almost 14 years ago that he was something special.  Someone that would potentially change my life forever.
He, even at 19, was confident, loving, wise, brilliant, honest, and had so much spiritual depth. He knew he wanted to be a doctor and was on that path to make it happen.
I fell for him quickly and hard.  I knew I was young and that this love may not last but I was truly smitten.  He had my heart and I was going wherever he went.  
Thankfully, this love did last and he has never let go of me.  He has led me through this wonderful life of ours...this life that at times has been so sad and so terribly hard.  He has loved me through the worst moments of my life and the best moments of my life.
I'll never forget after Forrest passed the amount of people that told us losing a child is so hard on a marriage and the statistics show that a large percentage of marriages end in divorce.  I remember David and I looking at each other and deciding right then and there that we were fighting for our marriage.  We were going to fight for each other.  We were going to work hard to make sure our marriage was a top priority.

I can thankfully say that we are stronger, more in love, and respect each other far more than we did before we had Forrest.  We can now look at each other and know that we can make it through any and everything.  We have survived the best and the worst and love each other more than ever.

I am sitting here typing this and crying because I truly can't express what he means to me.  We have our ups and downs like every normal couple does and there are times I want to pull out my hair because he hasn't taken the trash out after being asked 5 times but I truly don't know what I would do without him.  
We were watching the movie "We Bought a Zoo" the other night and after it was all over we both just sat there not saying a word but with tears rolling down our faces (I think I am the only one who had the tears but we were definitely thinking the same thing).  It hit us hard that life without the other would truly be terrible.  He is my once in a lifetime kind of love.

Happy Anniversary David...thank you for being my once in a lifetime kind of love.  I can't wait to spend many, many more years together raising our precious children and growing old together.