' Love is not loveWhich alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;'
-William Shakespeare--
---We're riding in the car. It's the first evening we've spent alone since our son was born. We've gone so quickly from being a couple of young kids with our own ideas and plans for our lives, to two people who now walk a single path. Sometimes the path is rocky, and sometimes it's smooth. Sometimes we travel a great distance, and sometimes we stand in the same place for a while, one waiting for the other to move. Mostly he waits patiently for me to move. But we've both learned with time, that the importance of the path is that it is traveled together.
I think, as I glance over at him, how he's changed so much since the first time we road in a car like this together. I see it looking back now. I didn't have a chance back then. Not even for a second. I was his from the moment he shook my father's hand and said, "I'll have her home by 10, sir." He wasn't even scared.
We were young. Very young....and the odds weren't in our favor. Not many young kids can make a marriage last. Our parents were terrified for us. Perhaps because they knew that we still had a lot of growing to do, and that that meant we would most likely change. And that meant, that we might become different people along the way, and that someday we might wake up strangers.
It's true though. We did change. We've seen hard times, heart aches, births, deaths, disappointment....but the one thing that hasn't changed...is our love for one another. People change...life changes...circumstances change....and love remains the same. It is an ever fixed mark, that looks on tempests and is never shaken.
We ride in silence now, down the road...in our car...him holding my hand. I am content in knowing that our silence is comfortable and familiar, and it feels just like home.
