I See "The Dream" In This Photo

I love this photo. Isn't this the dream? 

Typically young girls walk down the aisle with rosy cheeks and tiny waists in once-in-a-lifetime dresses. Happy, healthy, silly and stupid with love. Two people gazing into each others eyes making promises and commitments with NO IDEA as to what they are actually promising. 

I don't know their whole story, but I'm confident that every day wasn't laughs by the river. I imagine there were fights, tears of anger and of pain, words and actions they wished they could take back. I am sure there were sick babies and lists of household chores ... not to mention trying to survive raising teenagers. There were agonizing times of losing family members and jubilant times of adding new ones.

I don't know their whole story, but I do know they were two people growing up together. Two people trying to figure out who they were as individuals and who they were together. Two people learning to parent, advancing their careers, making new friends and leaving some old ones behind. Two people, mostly healthy, occasionally sick making their way through as best they knew how. There were Christmas trees to decorate and Halloween costumes to make ... turkeys to cook and vacations to plan. There was money to save and money to spend.  Two people laying their head down side by side night after night and waking up to do the day all over again.  I imagine there were days of great surprise and weeks with plenty of monotony.  There were habits, routines and rituals. 

And now after years of hard work, sacrifice and submission to each other they have reached a season in their marriage where they can rest comfortably in the quiet of day to day life. They can swim in the lake in the summer and walk through the woods in the winter. They can visit with their grown children, who now understand the decisions they made. Children who are going through those very processes now. They can spoil their grandchildren with gifts and time and love. They can find joy in a shared crossword puzzle or in the quiet that comes from reading. Behind their hugs and kisses is an assurance, an unspoken confidence, that they are there for each other no matter what life brings ... because life has already brought so much. And they are still standing ... together.  Over the years they have chosen forgiveness over blame, compromise over argumentativeness, and acceptance over pride.  I don't know their whole story, but I do know this because I can see it in this photo. And  that is why I love it so.

So in this month of love and valentines, I wanted to share this photo on the blog. I wanted to share with you what I saw in it. This is one of my goals. One of my dreams. I hope for a photo of my own much like this one one day.  (And I think I've got a pretty good shot at it now.)