August...

This blog is normally about the day to day, the adventure, an insight into our small existence here in Ireland and has been an important way of communicating with family and friends. I will with this post be going completely of the subject for the most of it. The reason for that is I have two milestones that are happening this month, they are the two that have shaped my life in the last decade more than anything else, they come from the extremes of both happiness and sadness and are in integral part of who i am today as a person, husband, father and  friend.

Firstly on the 12th of august 2006 We will celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary. I am in utter disbelief that the time has passed so quickly, and yet I can think back and see how full these ten years have been. We have walked and sometimes stumbled, through so much together. We’ve laughed to the point of tears, we’ve cried in waves of sorrow and sadness, we’ve fought and we’ve forgiven hundreds of times. We found out that love isn't a given and that you must choose to love every day.  Love is what you do and what you feel. And luckily for us our love has only deepened, matured and strengthened over the years.


I never doubted we’d make it this far, but I’m pretty sure there were plenty of people who did. I can’t help but think maybe the longest lasting marriages, the ones that last forever, until death, are the imperfect ones,like ours, the ones where you learn each day, the ones where you have to constantly work at it. Ours is certainly not the prettiest picture of marriage but perhaps the most realistic and i  wouldn't change it for anything.

 C isn’t perfect, I'm definitely not, but I know she is perfect for me. She is perfect because she has seen me in my darkest moments and never given up on me. She has seen me at my worst, and still held my hand again the very next day. She understands and supports my dreams without fail, and manages to catch me every time I’m close to giving up. And despite all the ups and downs of marriage, I know she loves me inside and out, for who I am, not for who I appear to be.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery said "Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking together in the same direction"So I hope I am able to see what she sees for as long as i live.

We never really had the chance to experience the "Honeymoon period" after getting married, we were thrust face first into the second of the milestones, the 22nd of august 2006 while still on honeymoon, I lost my younger brother in an automobile accident. In an instant my life and that of my young wife were changed forever. The Grief from such a loss is brutally painful, and never goes away, I've often been told that these things happen for a reason, They don't, that phrase is said by people who feel the need to say something but have nothing of real substance to say.

Losing a sibling and for my parents losing a child is something that cannot be fixed they can only be carried, carried silently for the most part, carried in the depths of your soul, stored where we store the things that we will never have the tools to deal with.

Over the years I have written many letters to my brother, some published for all to see, some not. I have shared things I felt needed sharing. I have spoken to him like he was with me in times of hardship, and laughed and cried with him when remembering things we experienced together as brothers. He was my first confidante, my very first best friend and my first partner in crime. He was a gentle but  restless soul always trying to better himself always reaching for new levels of self-awareness and achievement, but gentle and patient all at the same time. Many people go through their entire lives not having truly lived and loved like he did in his short time with us.

Both the death of my brother and my marriage to C will forever be intertwined, each have played an important role in the other, Marc with all the help and support he gave C, and what can only be described as the most heartfelt best man speech I've ever heard.  And in all the love, support and patience C has shown me in dealing with his loss.

In reality he may have died, but he lives on in all the people he touched along the way, he lives on in the memories we have, in the thoughts we have, in the ideals we pass on to others and in the adventures he has vicariously lived through us.The month of August will always be bitter sweet but a month that I love and loathe all the same. its these moments combined with some others that have guided us along the path we have walked. Guided us to where we are now. This adventure would would not have been possible without the strength We have drawn from these experiences.

In the end it is said that its not about the amount of years in a life but by the amount of life in the years. I hope to be lucky enough one day that Im able to say I've truly lived.