Darling Drew

Yesterday we celebrated 18 years of marriage. Here we are still standing, “they” said we wouldn’t make it! We were too busy having a lovely day together out for breakfast, then out to dinner and cricket with friends for my annual letter to you. So here it is a day late – filled with no less love though.

I am not going to pretend for one second it is wedded bliss every day because frankly that would be a lie. My golly I don’t think for one second either of us thought that we would have wedded bliss every day, but the roller coaster we hopped on no-one could have even predicted that. But we are still here, still riding the ride.

During the last 18 years so much has happened, the first shock that came flying our way was the day we found out that I was pregnant with the baby that would become our beautiful eldest son Zac. This while I was studying, working a couple of part-time jobs, you working an incredible amount of overtime all while settling into married life. We then bought a house, moved and he arrived. That was all within the first 10mths of our marriage and doesn’t even go close to describing the roller coaster that was my pregnancy with our darling son who insisted on arriving 9wks early!

I finished uni, we settled into life in our new home with you working a lot, volunteering even more and I settled into a teaching role. Curve balls 2 & 3 come along only months into my first permanent teaching role. As always we have bumbled along and you have been there right by my side as I coped (or didn’t) with PND after Zac, another difficult pregnancy with our precious girls never really knowing what would happen and in the end they were born at 34wks beautiful, strong and healthy, just like their big brother 3.5 years earlier. Again, the PND rolled around and we bumbled on through life. You volunteering, me working or not, me raising our children, trying to create a home for us and our children. This hasn’t always been easy but there is always love.

You have been there for me through thick and thin. You have wheeled me around in a wheelchair when my leg stopped working and caught me as I fell when my brain finally gave up too. You have driven backwards and forwards to visit me in hospital after my many, many operations. You have stood by me when I couldn’t stand for myself. You have helped me shower when I couldn’t do it myself, you have been there when I fell through rock bottom and found a subterranean level that I didn’t even know would be there. You have picked me up countless times and for that I am ever grateful.

2018 has probably been one of our least eventful in a very long time. I have started to get back out there in absolute baby steps. The girls has their first year of high school and loved it, Zac had his penultimate year and really can’t wait to be done. The girls turned 13 which meant we went from one to three teenagers and a menopausal mum in the one house and there are days the hormones are flying! We have officially outgrown our house with Zac now sleeping in the kids “toy room”, so that the girls could have a room each. He also turned 17 and got his licence and that is a whole different world of parenting worry. Zac also joined you in the volunteer ranks at SES. Seems all those year of learning to crawl and walk at LHQ has paid off and he has slotted straight in there as if he has been there his whole life (well he kind of has really lol). And another big event for Zac last year was when he code hopped to AFL and won the silverware in his first year of playing. The girls are cruising along making new friends, discovering all sorts of new things like K-Pop (Korean music for anyone wondering!) and growing before our eyes.

We have an exciting year of change in front of us with hopefully a new house that we can all fit comfortably in on the immediate horizon. Zac doing his HSC year, me writing more and finally getting started on my book and you permanent with SES something you have worked so hard for and we are very proud of you.

I can’t promise that the next 18 years will be any less of a roller coaster than the last 18 because I am fairly sure that isn’t how I/we do life. What I can promise is that I will always love you, I may not always like you, but always love you. With you I am a better person, I am stronger, you make me want to do more and be more. You make me my best self. Just if you could work on the breathing thing that would be great lol …

Thank you for everything you have done for me, for us and for our family. Thank you for being there for me when others ran and I can’t be there for myself. Thank you for all the special things you do to show your love for me like decorate our house in Sharks colours for their Grand Final outing (secretly I think you are a Sharkies fan but you like to be different.) Here’s to many more years together enjoying our children and our families. Looking forward to all the beautiful memories we will create.

Here is a little glimpse into the last 18 years together with our family and dearest friends who hold us up when we fall.

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