Funny Guy Friday… Happy Anniversary

     Funny Guy Friday is written each week by my husband Mark. 
     So… I married a funny guy...
     Last Sunday brought us some much-needed rain, but it also resulted in the cancellation of a much-needed double header. Rain-outs are a bear to reschedule.
     Anyway, I took advantage of the extra time at home by cleaning out our pantry and taking the kids to a movie. I clean the pantry about once every three or four months, and each time I do it I declare that this is the last time that I do this. Everybody has to stop piling stuff in the pantry when there is no place else to put it.  Now this begs the question, if there no place left to put it, what should they do with it? Frankly, I don't care… just don't put it in my clean pantry.
      After I was done, I drove the two older kids to the mall to see the Hunger Games… the movie not the Home Edition. As I watched my 15-year-old Grace, her good friend Lizzie, and my 12-year-old Matthew stroll into the mall… all by themselves... I suddenly became reflective about the fact that my kids are growing up. I realized that that they will only be getting less and less dependant upon Cheryl and me, and as cool as we are, they won't choose to be around us all the time.
     I suppose this has been coming for some time, but it hit home as I watched them happily disappear into the mall. I was eager to get home to pick up Cheryl, Noah and my mother (she spent the weekend with us), and take them to a different movie, one more appropriate for a seven-year-old. I was totally ecstatic when Noah jumped up on my lap as the movie started. I couldn't feel my legs for ninety minutes, but it was well worth it.
      I suppose this is a good time to be reflective about my family. On Wednesday, Cheryl and I celebrated our 20th anniversary. Who would have thought?
     Actually, Cheryl and I both knew from the outset that we were going to get married. We had discussed it on our second date. I can honestly say that I knew I was going to marry her from the very first moment that I laid eyes on her when she was singing in the Church folk group. The problem was that I was dating someone else at the time. A small detail that was easily… well... not so easily… resolved.
     When I finally did break up with the other young lady, she requested that although we were no longer going to date, would I still attend her friend's wedding with her. That wedding was scheduled to take place six weeks later.
     I agreed, but in the meantime, I was not going to wait to go out with Cheryl.
     For our first date, we had a great time at Riordan's restaurant in downtown Annapolis. We ate, we drank, we laughed, and we got an education about the mating rituals of ducks by some crazy lady on the dock. On the drive home, I thought that I should advise my future wife about the wedding that I was going to attend in six weeks… with another woman. Why did I tell her? What the heck, I knew I was going to marry her, I should at least be honest with her. Her response was immediate... Call me when you are done with all that! 
      My response was pretty immediate, too. There was no way I was going to wait six weeks. I called the girl the next day and advised her that I would not be attending the wedding. I actually used the line….It's not you, it's me! Actually, it was Cheryl, but that's our little secret.
     After a six-week whirlwind romance, we got engaged. Kind of ironic now that I think about it; we probably got engaged on the very same day that I was supposed to attend that wedding. Honestly, I am only now just realizing that. That explains the angry phone call I got a week later back then. I digress.
      I wanted to get married right away, but this was the first wedding for Cheryl's family, and plans had to be made… and changed… and rearranged. Funny thing was, Cheryl was pretty much laissez-faire when it came to wedding plans. Her mother and her younger sister seemed to be in charge. This was my first introduction to just how laid back Cheryl can be. I would be discussing wedding plans with her mother while Cheryl danced with her sister in the living room. To this day, she still wants to lead.
      I mentioned that I fell in love with her the very first time I laid eyes on her. That is not exactly correct. Technically, it was about the 50th or 60th time I had laid eyes on her because we went to the same junior high and senior high school together for six years. During that time, we never once spoke to one another. She happily reports that although she was a cheerleader in junior high and I was the point guard on our championship basketball team, she can not remember my playing. When I first heard this, I pointed out that there were only two white guys that played all the time. She immediately named the other white guy, but could not remember me. When asked if she remembered my playing baseball on our high school's state championship team, she responded that she didn't even know that our school had a baseball team.
     Over the years, there have been times when we would talk about some event that we were involved with, or a party or concert that we had attended, and then realized that we were both at the same event… albeit with some other guy or girl. In my mind, this confirms that God had a plan for us to be together, even if we were together with some other guy or girl.
     We got married on April 25th, 1992 at 2 pm. It was sunny in the morning for pictures; it poured during the ceremony; and then it got sunny again for more photos, as soon as the ceremony was over. Perfect timing.
     Over the years, I have come to learn that this is how things work out for Cheryl. No matter how bad things might seem, they always seem to work out for Cheryl. Even when they don't quite work out, she will smile and say God has a plan… everything happens for a reason. We need to wait and see what His plan is! How can you argue with that? Irritating and irrefutable all at the same time.
     Cheryl is clever, smart, funny, honest, faithful… and not hard to look at. But among all of her many great qualities, none is more obvious than her gifts as a mother. Our marriage has blessed us with three beautiful children. Each shares with her the common traits of faithfulness, kindness and love. Cheryl is the perfect example for the kids because she exhibits those qualities every day.
     I have often said that Cheryl is the nicest person that God ever put on this Earth, and she lives like that every day. A friend once told us that when he first met Cheryl, he thought it was all just a big act, that nobody could possibly be that up-beat and kind all of the time. I am here to tell you that she is… and it is tough on me… try living with that for twenty years. I suppose we all have our crosses to bear.
     Despite our kids' similarities, Cheryl also encourages them to express themselves with their own individual and unique styles. I have said that it is surprising to me that our kids were raised in the same house by the same set of parents. They each exhibit different strengths and traits that keep things both very interesting and very challenging in our home.
     Despite my efforts to muck it all up, Cheryl keeps things going. She encourages them to try new things and, above all else, to be kind and supportive to each other. As parents, I think our greatest blessing is that our kids do genuinely enjoy each other… except when Matthew is trying to get Noah to "tap out." This rarely ends well for either one of them.
     Each week, I write Funny Guy Friday about things that I think are funny. I suppose… you know… if  you read them all… there has been a time… or two… here and there… where, I might have… kinda… made fun of something Cheryl has said… or has done. I know her mother has pointed this out to me on occasion. My response to my mother-in-law is that I kid because I love. I kid her so much because I love her so much. I give her that response or I point out that her daughter has it pretty good with me, and that women die and want to come back reincarnated as Cheryl… so lay off.
     Well, the truth is that I am the one that has had it pretty good over the past twenty years. Despite our hasty decision to get married, for the past twenty years, there has never been a day that I have wondered whether I had made the right decision to propose. There has never been a day that I awakened and did not want her lying next to me. There has never been a day that I questioned her love and commitment to me, to our kids, or to her faith. And I cannot imagine, in the next twenty years, that any of that will ever change.
     Happy Anniversary. I love you!
     Having said all that, if you say or do something silly this week that I find to be funny, I am going to write about it next week.
     Like I said, we all have our crosses to bear.