Nearly 11 years ago...

I was in our closet yesterday and I came across a card I had given Amy to say 'Happy 1 year & 10 months' since we had started dating. It is dated 3 October '97.

In a few days, Amy and I will have been together for 11 years. I'm looking at her right now as she's asleep on the couch and she's as amazing now as when I first met her... no, more so! I am so grateful for her and wish I could be with her another 90... then another 900!

Below is the card I had given her then. It was blank, so I created a story to go with the cover. It barely fit, but I remember how fun it was making that story up.

"Once upon a time, there was a boy who lived in the countryside in a small house. He occasionally would play in the trees surrounding his house, or perhaps walk along the stream that slowly stirred down the rolling hills.

"Although he was a content boy and happy, there was a world of emptiness inside. He had the trees to play in and his friends, the rabbits, but there was a pain and loneliness deep in his still heart that even the deer and butterflies couldn't fill.

"There was no color in his world. The boy had never seen color before; at least not in the rich, full color that comes from true joy that you or I may see. One day he saw a small puff of pink and splash of bright blue while he'd been laughing and playing with the rabbits. He stopped laughing and looked at the sky in awe at the new sight, but it had faded away as quickly as it had come. Questioningly, the boy sighed and sadly plopped down beside a tree and cried, thinking about the wonderful thing that had lit up the sky for a sweet moment.

"That afternoon, just before his mother was about to call him in for dinner, he was wading his feet in his favorite part of the stream, looking for playful fish or perhaps a smooth-sparkly rock he could skip. His child-like eyes widened as he sighted a conch shell propped up against a large rock at the bottom of the stream.

"A shell? he thought. In my stream?

"He knew that conch shells only came from the magic places his father would tell him about during his bed-time stories, but he never thought he'd see one. Especially in his stream.

"He excitedly rolled up his sleeve and dipped his small hand into the cold water. His heart welled with tears as he picked up the wonderful, colorful shell. Colors of every kind danced and flowed over the surface of the shell and as he looked inside there was a pool of color so deep and wide, so deep and bright that he thought it was heaven. As he was holding the shiny shell, it began to change; it became a beautiful brush. He himself began to change as he took on the very colors the brush was radiating. On the opposite side of the stream was the ladder his father had left where he'd been picking apples before he had gone back to the house. The boy ran to it, brush in hand, and climbed to the very top of the ladder. Stretching his arms out and smiling as wide as the sky, color as beaming and as beautiful as his wildest dreams shot from the brush across the dull sky. It was amazing.

"In that blanket of color, the boy saw a girl as radiant as the rainbow itself and he reached out for her. She came to him smiling.

"Soon the whole land was filled with the rainbow's radiance and the two sat together with their feet wading in the stream's brisk-blue water.

"He never heard his mother call for him, for he had found his friend. His heart was now alive and he felt it beat for the first time.

"He was with Amy.

xxoo

3 Oct 97 Happy 1 year & 10 months!

D.

Happy 11 years since we started dating, Ames.

I'm still holding that brush. You and the kids give me so much life and the color you paint my world leaves me open-mouthed. I am so grateful for you. I love you.