Stephen loved to tell me that when he was first diagnosed with leukemia, planning our engagement and wedding was what got him through. He said that while he lay on his hospital bed – this was before the time of smart phones and netflix – he had time to pray, reflect, and plan. He even managed to get my engagement ring while he was on a day pass in between treatment! On Thanksgiving weekend in 2008, a mere six months after he was diagnosed and achieved remission, he proposed to me in front of the church he wanted us to get married in. The next year on the Feast of the Queenship of Mary, I married the love of my life. On his hospital bed many years later, he told me that he had never felt God’s hand so strongly in his life than when he was planning our wedding. He had a vision for our big day and he had never felt more certain of anything in his life than he did on our wedding day.

On the morning of our wedding day, Stephen (who had sent me a total of 5 cards to my dozens of letters over the course of 9 years), had one of my bridesmaids give me an envelope. In it was a letter he had written that morning where he reminds me of one thing to “trust that God will deliver.” He tells me that our trust in God is what begins our journey together; it is this same trust which will carry us through our journey in life until we come to our eventual destination in Heaven.

Reading this letter on our tenth wedding anniversary is a true comfort. His foresight is impeccable. To have a husband who’s ultimate goal was not set on the temporal world is indeed very humbling.

Ten years, four wonderful kids, and one unfathomable loss. Today is a hard day to remember, but it was too beautiful of a day to forget.

Happy Anniversary babe.