20

Last week, Jude and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary in classic fashion.  For us, anyway.  She picked Joe up from school and JP from basketball practice after school, got a quick dinner, then took Joe to basketball practice.  I taught class at the Nashville School of Law from 6:30 - 8:10 p.m.  In other words, Jude and I were on the go, as we normally are, with family and work.  

We did manage to sneak away Friday night for a quiet dinner in our neighborhood at Epice.  By sneak away, of course, I mean I roared into the Epice parking lot from Franklin on two wheels after concluding a difficult, 3-day mediation - successfully, I might add.  There's that work thing, again.  I was on a bit of a high, though, as the mediation was challenging, to be sure, but I enjoyed getting to know the parties and mediating for two attorneys of whom I am very fond.  

Saturday night, Jude and I went to see Vail Johnson and his jazz fusion at the Nashville Jazz Workshop near Fisk University.  We took a bottle of wine and a meat/cheese plate - courtesy of Jude - into the venue, which was cool.  It was a nice night.  Something different and fun.  

So, twenty years married.  Twenty-five years together.  That's a long time, when I stop and think about it.  I think I appreciate the longevity of our relationship even more given the kind of work I do.  While I more than many have long realized that nothing lasts forever, it is nice to be in a relationship that has lasted as long as ours.  In many ways, it's becoming more and more rare to see two people together for more than two decades.  

So much has happened in our lives over the last twenty years.  A lot of it good, but some of it bad, or sad.  Jude and I have laughed together, for sure.  We've argued or fought with each other occasionally but, fortunately, not too often.  Personally, we've dealt with health issues, some more serious than others.  We've cried on each other shoulder in difficult times, especially when we've lost people we've loved.  I'm thinking, of course, of our beloved Carley and my mom, who died roughly a month apart three years ago.  

I think we've leaned on each other in the hard times, the times of loss or uncertainty and unhappiness at work.  We've tried hard to be there for each other.  To listen, which is so important in any long-term, healthy relationship.  To not talk and not offer advice but to listen.  

And, then, of course, there is the boys.  JP and Joe, our North Start and the two lights of our lives.  For them, we give everything, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  As we ate dinner at Epice, we marveled at our great good fortune in having the boys that we have as our sons.  In our jobs - both of our jobs - we see, sometimes, terribly things and situations with children in crisis, struggling to keep their heads above water.  I think makes us appreciate how blessed we are with out boys all the more.  I know it works that way for me.  

My new lawyer at work, Andrea, shakes her head and laughs on Mondays when I tell her how busy Jude and I were over the weekend, transporting JP and Joe to one sporting event or another.  The chauffeur's hat goes on, for me, as soon as I leave the office on Friday evening.  The thing is, though, Jude and I wouldn't have it any other way.  This time with the boys is fleeting, for sure, especially since JP will be driving in a little more than a year.  

When you think about it, really, all of this is fleeting.  Time - that concept, again - passes by, seemingly slowly, and then suddenly, it's gone.  Before we're ready, we're out of time, and left only with our memories of these crazy, busy, challenging, lovely days and months and years with out boys and with the knowledge that we raised them together, Jude and I.  

For all or the professional accolades and recognition, formally and informally, for the reputations Jude and I have built among our peers and colleagues, none of it really matters.  What matters - to us, anyway - is those boys, JP and Joe, our life's work and our crowning achievement.  Everything we do is for them.  Everything we have is for them.  That's something Jude and I have in common, I know.  

So, I'll finish my coffee at Dose, after having dropped JP off early at MBA for a Fellowship of Christian Athletes meeting.  Jude will work from home today and hang out with Joe, who is off school due to parent-teacher conferences.  I think she is going to take the boys to see Belmont play baseball this afternoon.  Tomorrow, Joe has his end-of-season basketball tournament and JP has a pitching lesson at some point on Sunday evening.  

And so it goes.  From a snowy wedding night at the Parthenon, celebrating our union with so many of our family and friends, to a life filled with practices, games, and a life built around our boys.  I wouldn't change a thing, not one solitary thing.  

Twenty is a big number.  I'm looking forward to twenty more years together, God willing.