Tomorrow is my parents’ 43rd wedding anniversary. Congratulations to them. I wish them nothing but happiness and love for the next 43 years!

My parent’s have taught me many things in life, but really they have shown me, what a solid, happy and equal marriage looks like. They are amazing together, like two peas in a pod. They are locked together for life, and I think it’s so cute. Sure they fight, everybody does, but the way they fight isn’t your usual type of fighting. Before I got married, if I tried to intervene and pick a side, they would then join together and turn on me, as if I was the one in the wrong. So I learned early, that this was their weird and crazy way of expressing their love, that I wanted nothing to do with.

Soon after my brother and I were in school full-time, my mom went back to work. Back then, my dad was in the printing industry. Eventually he bought out the company, and after getting my mom to do his books, he started to get her to start answering his phones and he finally convinced her to quit her job and work with him full-time. It was a family affair. They woke up, went to work together, worked all day together, came back home together and went to bed. Then, they did it all over again. Everyday. How they didn’t kill each other is beyond the limits of my brain. But I guess that is the basis of their marriage…they really don’t ever get too much of each other.

At about exactly the time I graduated high school, they lost their business. As i mentioned, it was a family affair, so my uncle and cousin were also out of a job. It was hard. My parents took jobs out of their comfort zones and we all did what we could to make things work, including changing my post-secondary school plans. I have no regrets how things worked out, trust me.

Eventually my mom landed a retail job, and soon after my dad joined the same company. They often worked together in the same store, and were back to their FULL days together. And again, they would bicker back and forth, but if you tried to get in on it, they would both turn on YOU, so as always, I really tried to stay out it. It still didn’t stop me from thinking they were crazy. And yet I wondered, in awe, how they still had a spark between them.

They don’t work in the same store too often anymore, especially now that my mom helps to watch her grandkids a few days each week, which includes my nephew. But they still have this amazing connection. They are always looking out for each other and you can tell that they genuinely love each other. A lot.

So while I am closing in on 8 years, come October, I can only look at them as role models. They live the marriage that people dream of. They are each other’s soul mates. And in an age where divorce seems to be an easy choice for some, I salute my parents, their love and their lives together. I hope D and I are as lucky as you!

Happy Anniversary to you both. Love you!