Still Miles to Go

Ten years ago today, I began dating the boy who would become the man who would become my husband, my hero, my best friend.

Through all the craziness in the past ten years – whether it be medical, family-related, loss, or growing pains – there has been one constant.  Keith.  He has been firmly placed by my side through it all.  I still don’t know what other high school Junior would choose to go bravely, unfaltering, even happily along side all this, but I’m glad I found the one who would.

I had asked him why a few months ago.  Why would a teenager choose this?  He took a while to answer, but his response was the unbearable guilt he would have felt.  My first thought was guilt?!?  He stayed with me because he would have felt guilty if he hadn’t?  No, he explained.  I would have felt guilt for the rest of my life for leaving someone I loved to go through it all alone.

Keith is a child in a grown man’s body.  He likes playing video games, wearing screen tee’s and jeans, and eating Fruity Pebbles for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  He can’t balance the books, doesn’t know how to use a calender, and has to play 20 Questions just to send a check off.  And yet, he possesses more maturity than almost any other man I know.  He was unhesitatingly there when I spent months bed-bound and home-schooled as a teenager.  He didn’t have a second thought about taking a girl in a wheelchair to Senior Prom.  He only worried about my experience for nearly 5 years of a long-distance relationship while we were in undergrad.  He calmly and compassionately cared for me when I was having seizures daily, episodes that were messy and scary.  And he confidently held my hand as we listened to the doctor’s tell us that I had a progressive and incurable neuromuscular disease.  He’s always there.

I found out recently that not everyone considers his or her spouse as a “best friend.” This shocked me. It makes me incredibly sad. Sure, there’s still love and loyalty that keep those relationships together (as far as I know), but I can’t imagine not having my best friend there with me through it all. I don’t know whether we could have made it through those difficult times without our friendship. Love and loyalty can only get you so far; being able to enjoy and share our time together has made all the difference. We can play board games one-on-one until the pieces wear out. We can goof and giggle through 10-hour road trips. We can talk until 3 am. Or just sit and be. Silently. It doesn’t matter what we do or where we are as long as we’re together.

Weeks before we married nearly 3 years ago, a friend joked that we had already done the whole “for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health” deal. And we had. Well, we had done the “for poorer” and “in sickness” parts, at least. So I wonder, would things even out and be for worse if we had health and riches? Because right now, things are so good and so strong between us that I can’t imagine a “better.” I honestly can’t imagine being happier. I can’t imagine a life without him.