Cauliflower Love

I had imagined that our 25th wedding anniversary gala to have a large white tent decorated with flowers and with a six piece orchestra playing a romantic song. Several hundreds of guests would be mixing around. My husband and I would be exchanging diamond studded matching bracelets. He would romantically feed me a piece of the anniversary cake and then we would sway on the dance floor to the music of 'Our Love is Here to Stay'.

The reality was here we are two 47 years old adults sitting together in the backyard with party hats strapped under our chins.

25 years. There had been a time where we would have gotten a standing ovation for being married that long. Now, kids look at you as if you are a prehistoric animal.

When I read the newspaper, I found myself searching to the anniversary section, looking for people who had survived 50 to 60 years of marriage. I knew that it would be a matter of time before anyone would be able to tell us apart. Already, our ideas, our stories and our attitudes have blended to such a degree where we barely knew where one began and the other left off. Whenever he told a joke, I knew the exact moment he was going to say 'Help me with the punch line, honey'.

He was still late all the time and still left handed. He was with his cronies less, but had replaced them with other distractions such as jogging and fishing. I had cut his hair and turned 33488 pieces of his underwear right side out. He had washed my feet when I was pregnant and couldn't see them. He had also put his car seat back to it's original position 18675 times after I used the car.

We had shared toothpaste, debts, closets and relatives. We had given each other honesty and trust.

He came over to where I was seated and said, 'I got a present for you. Close your eyes.' When I opened my eyes, he was holding a cauliflower that comes packed in a pickle jar.
'I hid it from the kids'. he said, 'because I know how much you like the cauliflower.' Maybe love is as simple as this.