Last week at school, Penny attended her first bridal shower,
for one of her teachers. She came home talking to our nanny all about it. They
decided to make a card. Penny instructed: “Mom in a white dress. Dad in a
‘cedo.’ And a church. And on the inside write, ‘Thanks for getting married’.” I
found the card propped against the pillows on our bed that evening.

Little did Penny know that Saturday was our 11^th
wedding anniversary, our annual opportunity to reflect on this life together,
this commitment to bind ourselves to one another forever, “forsaking all
others.” 

We went out to dinner to celebrate, and Peter asked me to
recall one “fond memory” from each year of our marriage. Some of them were
easy: finding out I was pregnant with Penny in the spring of 2005, our trip to
California in July of 2001, sitting in the hospital bed with William in my arms
in August of 2008, standing with Grand Penny, Peter’s mother, in the kitchen of
our little house in Richmond, Virginia in October of 2002.

The recent years were the hardest to recall. We’ve stopped
taking annual vacations now that we have children. We’ve settled into a
predictable rhythm, where every September brings with it a return to the dorm
of thirty boys and new freshmen in Peter’s classes and school for Penny, and
every June brings with it a move to Connecticut, with walks through the marsh
and playing on the beach and lots of tennis matches for Peter and lots of
writing time for me. I think fondly about our life in a general sense now, but
the particularities are harder to grasp.

Right now, Penny knows that marriage involves a white dress
and a “cedo” and a church. It’s a good beginning. I think back to that day,
eleven years ago, where Peter and I at age 22 looked (and felt) somewhat like
little kids playing dress up. I think back to that day, with the dancing and
flowers and toasts and cake and the joy of it all… It was a good beginning. But
it was only that. Only the beginning of a much less momentous life together, a
life made of arguments about who should make the bed and who should get up this
time in the middle of the night, a life made of reconciliations, of walks as a
family telling the mundane details of our days in the midst of the chatter of
our little ones. It was a good beginning, and it has been a good eleven years.

“Thanks for getting married.”

You’re welcome, Penny. It has been our pleasure.