On October 11, 1997, Lynn and I got married. As I stood at the entrance to the sanctuary with my ten-year-old escort (my son), my soon-to-be husband was playing his guitar and singing me a song that he had written just for our wedding. The theme of the song was, “You’re my Best Friend.” How true that was to become.
As I stood there listening, my son kept saying, “You’re not going to cry, are you, mama?” I didn’t. I was amazed at his ability to sing to me when I knew how sentimental he was. He’s much more sentimental than I am. I’m a realist. He’s a softy.
Thinking back to those days, I thought our greatest challenge would be blending the two families, and it was indeed a challenge. There were times in those early years when I was not sure our marriage would make it, but we were committed. We had said our vows before God, and we intended to keep them, no matter how difficult.
The first years were strained as two very independent people learned to adjust. I admit my greatest issue with the marriage was that I didn’t feel that Lynn needed me at all. He did everything himself; he wasn’t one who shared his thoughts very much, and we didn’t really enjoy many of the same entertainments, so we lived fairly separate lives. Realizing that was a major problem, we worked on finding commonalities and sharing our lives more.
Fast-forward fourteen years. Now we share everything, he’s totally dependent on me, and we’re closer than we ever could have imagined. Yes, we even finish each other’s sentences, and we often start to mention something we’ve been considering to find out the other one has been thinking the same thing.
We are truly one now. So, while MS has certainly been a major challenge that neither of us really expected back in 1997, in many ways, it was an answer to my prayers. I had often asked God to make us closer–to make us one. I’ve learned over the years God has a strange way of answering prayers, and I have to say, this one falls into that category, but God took a dreadful condition, MS, and made it an answer to prayer. How awesome is that? Because you see, now, we truly are, “best friends.”
