By ELKE GOVERTSEN
It was simple. The dress was beyond perfect. The people gathered amazed me everyday. Family and friends from all over the world. The beach. The waves. The sunshine.
The perfect wedding—stress free, beautiful, and all of that paled in comparison to the simple fact that I was marrying the right guy.
Friends introduced us. They knew. They called him the “He-Elke” and claimed that they knew we would get married—years before we ever met.
We fell crushingly in love and then immediately went into a two-year long distance romance, filled with thousands and thousands of miles driven, countless hours of phone time, and a totally unrealistic idea about what actually being together would be like.
And then we were. Together. All the time. Until I thought we might kill each other.
And then I was sick. And he slept in the windowsill of my hospital room for weeks. And he carried me when I couldn’t walk. He told me I was beautiful when I was cut open, stitched back together, and left to heal with scars that will never go away.
He went from being an extreme backcountry athlete to a guy who took his sick girlfriend for walks. One block, then two. And then he would carry me home.
We were twenty-five.
His giant hands brought our son into the world.
Then he was a daddy. We were parents. I was stunned. He shone. When he held our son, he had ballast that I never expected and always needed.
He always got up with the baby at night. Always. Still does.
And then he was standing, in homage to Jon Cusack, with a baby in one hand and a boom box on his shoulder, blasting “In Your Eyes” and asking me to marry him.
Frankly, I was so terrified I don’t think I ever said yes.
But we did it anyway, got married in Mexico in our bare feet with our son. We said we had already done the richer, poorer, sickness, health thing… but what we learned during it was that at each turn we chose each other. So our vows were as much about how far we had already come then what was around the next bend.
But here we still are, a few bends later. I still choose you. And I say yes.
Happy anniversary to the right guy.
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Check out more from one of Missoula’s FAVORITE Mamas About Town, Elke Govertsen: F’ing Laundry, Norman Rockwell’s Got Nothing on Missoula, or Anywhere but Missoula, MT. And check out Missoula Children and Nature Network and Active Moms Missoula.
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Elke Govertsen is the publisher of Mamalode which is a magazine and website for area moms. When not juggling her family, business, and the laundry (disclosure – there is no laundry being done whatsoever), Elke tries to eek out time to write, do yoga, and read like a fiend.