Jaci Dawn

Don and I celebrated 38 years of marriage early last month, and we ended the month celebrating his birthday.

Losing both dogs last summer was something of a turning point in our marriage. Where once the dogs acted as something of a buffer between us, we were now stranded in mourning and – at least for one of us – a sea of loneliness. We have been driven closer through these months, spending more time together and rekindling that spark of love and friendship that first brought us together.

Now, the weather is starting to turn into summer (we have cold days still, and will have them until a week or two after the Fourth of July – it’s just the pattern of weather over the Pacific Northwest: you can’t trust it to stay summer until a couple weeks after the 4th). My mornings are often spent out in my little corner prayer garden, watching flowers and birds. I’d rather be outside than inside on any nice day.

We would rather spend time together.

I’m not writing or painting right now. I’m just spending time with my husband. I do promise to carve out more time for my own hobbies, but for now I am learning to be content with more time away. It wont always be like this: fall and winter will come, and the house will close in on me. I will need to write and draw.

Now – my husband needs the time I spend with him.

Don’t be fooled into thinking I am only doing that: spending all my time watching TV shows with my other half – I’m not. I garden, I will be canning, and I just snapped over 250 photos of life in our backyard (birds taking baths – it’s a real theme). It will take some time for me to work through all of those photos, winnowing out the very best ones (I have it down to 130, but that was just the first go-through).

Friends came down to help us celebrate the old man’s birthday. Life is good.