Twenty Years Now

Where'd they go?

Twenty years,
I don't know.
Sit and I wonder sometimes
where they've gone. . . 

Those lyrics are from "Like a Rock" by Bob Seger, my all time favorite musician.  When that song came out in Spring of 1986, when I was just 14 years old(!!), I loved that song. It spoke to me.  As I've gotten older, I've better understood the lyrics, and I've loved the song even more.

But this month, they've been playing in my head more than usual, and I've been thinking of certain sections in particular, like the one above.

Twenty years now, where'd they go?

Twenty years ago today, DH and I were wed.  We were young, 21 and 23, with two kids all ready.  Strikes were against us--our ages, our children, our having lived together before marriage.  But we were committed to each other.  We were both hard-working, and focused, and loyal.

Twenty years, I don't know.

I do know, but they sure went by fast.  They went to living.  To the daily tasks of waking up, of working, of keeping a home, of raising a family, to going to sleep at night.

Sit and I wonder sometimes, where they've gone.

They've gone quickly.  They've gone to conceiving and birthing two more children, and to raising all four kids.  They've gone to preschool and elementary school, middle school and high school, even college.  They've gone to countless ball games and track meets, to choir concerts and school plays and talent shows.  They've gone through four Confirmations, three high school graduations, and a Marine Corps  boot camp graduation.  They've gone through dropping two kids off at college, and through two overseas deployments of a son.  They've gone through the joy of a first (and so far only) grandchild.

They've gone to rolling with the economic punches and the job losses, to making ends meet somehow.  They've gone to career decisions that weren't always easy on the family in the short-term but were blessings when you looked at the big picture.

They've gone to saying goodbye to grandparents and even a parent as those lives ended. They've gone to  teaching our children about death being another part of life, and that life goes on, there is always a better time waiting on the other side of the bad and challenging times.

They've gone to times of joy and to times of struggle. They've gone to times of feeling like we were falling away from each other, like our marriage was being pulled apart; and they've gone to times of reaching out to each other and stitching "us" back together stronger.

That has been the key: reaching out and stitching our relationship back together.

Like a rock.

This is the title of the song, and the theme behind it.  Like a rock.  Solid, strong, weathering the storms.  That is my marriage.  Committed to the promises we made to each other, and to God, on our wedding day.

And I held firmly
To what I felt was right
Like a rock.

I pray God gives DH and I at least another 20 years of this rock, this strong, solid, firm marriage.