You Fill Up My Senses

 

This year will be a milestone for our marriage.  In this day when half of all marriages end in divorce, Annie and I will mark our 35^th anniversary.

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A little over 35 years ago Annie was visiting my house, sitting across the kitchen table from me, when I asked her a simple question, “Wanna go on a canoe trip with me?  We’ll spend a night or two camping and canoe during the day.”

Annie shook her head, “I’d love to but my dad would KILL me.”

I smiled, knowingly.  “He couldn’t say anything if we were married.”

Yep, I had it all planned out.

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We did go on that canoe trip, but we did it as a newlywed couple.  After we’d packed, but before we left, we were standing in the kitchen again, when I sang:

 

“You fill up my senses, like a night in the forest,

like the mountains in springtime, like a walk in the rain,

like a storm in the desert, like a sleepy blue ocean.

You fill up my senses; come fill me again.”

 

As I sang the words of John Denver’s “Annie’s Song,” my Annie gazed at me with love in her eyes.  Tears ran down her face.  When I finished, she said, “I always dreamed I’d be married to a man who would sing that to me.”

Yep, I’m a dream come true.  Wink, wink.

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Our life together hasn’t always been full of good times.  I stood beside Annie as she held our tiny son, Bobby, for the first, and possibly last, time.  Our son was fighting for life.

I’d heard the doctor tell the nurse that it might be the only chance Annie would get to hold him.

I thank God that Annie didn’t hear the doctor’s words.

That sad time in our marriage turned into one of the most joyous, as our son is still with us today, happy, healthy, and the father of one of our delightful grandsons.

I thank God for that even more.

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Grandparenthood has brought us some of the happiest times in our life together and some of the worst.  Annie has stood by my side as we suffered the loss of three grandsons, Payton, Jayden, and Adam.  Our hearts still mourn them, yearn for their little arms reaching out for Grannie and Pa.

Now we have three little angels looking down on us from heaven.

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With deep sorrow comes a greater capacity for happiness, and there has been plenty of that in our years together.

She and I have brought six delightful baby boys into this world.  We’ve watched them grow, getting stronger by the day, and achieving more than even we could have possibly dreamed for them.  They have matured into happy, healthy, strong, successful young men.  In the process, they have married five amazing, intelligent, loving women who we couldn’t love more if they’d been born to us.

But that’s not all.  Oh no.

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Despite the loss of three grandsons, we are the grandparents of three strapping baby boys.  Fearless little men who laugh and play and wrap their arms around our necks to tell us they love Grannie and Pa with a depth that almost brings tears to the eye.

But there’s more.  Oh yeah.

Five of the most beautiful, intelligent, loving little girls to ever walk the earth are ours too.  Their laughter and words of love are among the best parts of our lives.

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Annie, you’ve been with me through births and deaths, through the good times and the bad, through the lean times and the flush.  You’ve been my strength when I am weak.  You’ve been my light in the dark.  You’ve been my compass when I am lost.

You are my everything.

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The next stanza of “Annie’s Song” goes like this:

 

“Come let me love you.  Let me give my life to you.

Let me drown in your laughter.  Let me die in your arms.

Let me lay down beside you.  Let me always be with you.

Come let me love you.  Come love me again.”

 

I love you, Annie.

Happy 35^th anniversary.

Wanna try for 35 more?

 

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(above) A little video I assembled using photos and videos from our life together and some I got off the internet, along with the great Tom T. Hall’s “I Love”.  (below)  I couldn’t sing “Annie’s Song as well as John Denver, and I couldn’t illustrate it as well as this one I downloaded off Youtube.