Tomorrow will mark the 12th anniversary of the day I changed my last name.

I wore a green velvet dress and flowers in my hair; he wore jeans and cowboy boots.

He said I was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen and carried me across the threshold of our little house.  I said that he was my 'One' and wept as he placed the ring on my finger.

Twelve years later, he's still my 'One'.  He still thinks I'm the most beautiful thing he's ever seen (even when I have bedhead and pillow creases on my face). 

Throughout all the fights and the bickering, throughout all the threats of separation and divorce....I have loved him.  Throughout all the laughter and the happiness, throughout the evenings spent on the couch wrapped in each others arms...I have loved him.  Throughout the deployments, the TDY's, the schools and the academies...I have loved him.  I've never stopped.

I think that the thing that really brought home to me just how much I loved him was when I was sure that I was going to die.  As I sat with a broken body in a broken truck, hands shaking so badly that I couldn't dial his number properly, all I could think of was that I had to call him to tell him how much I loved him before I had to say goodbye...forever.  The feeling of sadness was so overwhelming, so consuming.....it was then that any and all doubt that I might have had about whether we were really meant to be together was banished.  I KNEW.

And I still know.  I may need the occasional reminder; I tend to get a little absorbed in the day-to-day stuff sometimes ....but in my heart of hearts, I still know.  We are just meant to be.  That's all there is to it.  We are simply meant to be together.

I believe in reincarnation.  I think that some souls are destined to be together, and will seek each other out throughout the many lifetimes that we experience and sometimes endure.  I think that we (Dave and I) are two of those souls.  I think that we've known each other before, and that we will, after this life has ended, know each other again.  And, when our time on this karmic wheel has come to an end, our souls will go on to.....well, I'm not sure what.  All I know is that we'll be together.

And that's all I need to know.

Dave, I love you. Thank you.  For putting up with me, for helping me stand when I feel like falling down, for being my eyes when I'm too blind to see stuff in front of my face, for being my voice when I'm unable to speak...for seeing me for who I really am, flaws and furies and all - and loving me anyway. 

Always, Graich.  Always.