Seven

I remember living in Fayetteville and seeing my dad come home one day with flowers for my mother. Since she was an avid gardener and preferred pretty flowers outside rather than inside, it was a rare occasion that my father brought home a bouquet for her. My sister and I, if memory serves me right, tried to warn him that it was neither my mother's birthday nor their anniversary. He informed us it was the anniversary of their first date. I've heard the story a few times about how they went to see Gone with the Wind -- one two reels -- and my father wore either/or a t-shirt printed with a bull's head under a white button-up such that the bull's head showed through or a large peace medallion (this on a man who would a few years later, in the midst of Vietnam, be an ROTC cadet at Kent State).

There were no flowers or any other celebrations, but Wes and I both made notice today of the fact that it's been 7 years since our first date. We have spent a quarter of lives together now. Our first date was to see The Princess and the Pea at a children's theater in downtown Charlotte. I made pita sandwiches to eat across the street at a park since we had to leave kind of late after Wes's baseball practice. Afterwards, we watched the opening ceremonies for the summer Olympics and then took a walk around campus, during which time we stopped to check on Wes's fruit flies. He had to remove the virgin fruit flies before they started to mate (don't ask me why -- I've no idea). We stayed up until 3 am, causing our roommates to gossip about what we'd been doing. Contrary to their assumptions, it was another month before he finally kissed me.

If, in twenty years and four kids later, Wes decides one year to bring home flowers for this anniversary of sort, I will know I have a good marriage. Regardless, I know I have a good man.