The anniversary of our anniversary is the hardest of all. We would be married 29 years by now. I think we would have made it through all that life still had to throw at us. But life had other plans.

I looked at our wedding photos today, our faces bright with youth, hope, love; family and friends wishing us a great future; the expectation of growing old together taken for granted. We politely placed a slice of fresh, creamy cake into the other’s mouth, reflecting the respect and admiration we would hold for each other in the years to come. We walked around the orange Datsun, left outside the church for those that wanted to scrawl well wishes.

I was thankful that the car we were really going to drive out west was in my parent’s garage, clear of nuptial graffiti.

A partial lifetime of memories rushes past my mind. It seems odd that it was really only 20 years. All that we crammed into those two decades must have really taken four or five decades, it would seem. So much life lived then, and since. I’ve had to pick me up and carry on in some semblance of a forward motion, some socially acceptable placing of a foot ahead of the other, dragging, heavy foot; an unwillingness to live again consumed me for too long.

And our son continues to grow; in his own way, in his own time, he is surviving too. And that is my greatest joy, my personal claim to life, that he lives again, too.

Marta Dorton 2012