Celebrating TWENTY years of Marriage!

As I thought of how to share our 20th wedding anniversary with all of you today, I found myself at a loss. I could tell you stories of before our marriage, the early years, or even some from this past weekend. I was given advice from my Auntie M on my wedding day: If you get through the first year, then you can get through anything. No one knew in August of 93' that in eight short months, the journey of loss would begin. By the time August 21st, 1994 rolled around we were exhausted, grieved, and functioning on auto pilot.

A fact many of you may not know, unless you read my book, Where's Heidi? One Sister's Journey, is this -- I was NOT the woman most saw outside the house. It was only because of my husband, Ed, and my parents that I functioned and made it through each day. At the time there was no God in our home or family - we blamed Him for taking Heidi. If you've ever tried to do anything on your own, without God's strength and help, you know it's only a matter of time. I'm grateful for Ed's support, he bore it all for me. I knew my parents experienced their greatest loss, the loss of a child, and worse yet - this child is missing. After ten years I released Ed of the burden and gave it all to God. A great decision, if you want the whole story, you'll have to get your copy of Where's Heidi? One Sister's Journey from Amazon.com.

Another aspect of our anniversary I could share with you is receiving the annual wedding gift from my mother and father-in-law. They always gave us something to represent the symbol for that year's anniversary. For our first anniversary, they gifted us Mickey Mouse paper products so I wouldn't have to do dishes for a week! Loved it! This year, our twentieth anniversary is "china". We won't be receiving any china this year, at least not from Ed's parents. Both are celebrating life in Heaven with Jesus now. So in honor of them and this year's symbolic gift, china, I'll use my Aunt Kay's china with our anniversary dinner, whenever that is.

So with no stories to tell, I'll share a few pics of Ed and I through the years. I'm not sure who the young and skinny couple is but I know they are the same two people who fell in love twenty years ago. The only difference, we have ample life experiences uniting and bonding us together for life. We look forward to each day here on earth and our time together in eternity.

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Happy Anniversary Ed!