When I wrote my blog post, Anniversaries - What They Mean to You I was celebrating my 20th wedding anniversary. Now I am happy and grateful to be celebrating my 30th anniversary this month on June 14, 2017.
If you have not had the opportunity to read any of my other blog posts to get to know me here is a short background describing what happened to me. I went completely blind in 1999 during a seven month hospitalization three of which I was in a coma. Now I also require two canes to walk, one support cane and one long white cane for navigation.
As I wrote about in “Anniversaries - What They Mean to You” I will always remember my 11th wedding anniversary among all others except for my 12th which I describe in my blog post above. I will never forget my 11th wedding anniversary because it was the last anniversary I could hold my wife and look into her bright caring eyes and see her loving expression on her beautiful face looking back at me. Thinking about the length of time that passed since that wonderful occasion brings up the thought of Kathy and me reaching another milestone. Our new milestone is over half of our married life I have not been able to see my loving wife Kathy or assist her the way I could or want to if I was not blind and did not require two canes to walk. Although I am working many hours a week in my profession, most other activities around the home are left up to Kathy to complete by herself which is very stressful and difficult.
Below are additional reasons I am celebrating and am grateful for to add to the ones I noted in Anniversaries - What They Mean to You.
- I am grateful Kathy did not accept the advice of the hospital personnel to send me off to a rehabilitation facility far away from family and friends. She instead decided to take me home to perform some rehabilitation herself which also enabled me to connect with local organizations to assist me locally instead of my being isolated in some far off location.
- I am grateful to have my dad build me a standing frame from plans he got from one of our local hospitals. This enabled my wife Kathy to work with me daily using it along with the other required therapy. This therapy eventually enabled me to walk again which I describe in Learning to Walk Again.
- I am grateful after having a total hip replacement that Kathy again took me home to help with the required rehabilitation which enabled me to recover and heal at home. I wrote about this in Accepting the Inevitable Total Hip Replacement , instead of sending me to a rehabilitation center.
- I am grateful Kathy did not take the advice of others and leave me when I was in the hospital. This enabled us to continue on our journey through life together, although now with additional obstacles and bumps in this road of life.
- I am grateful I have Kathy to maintain our home, our yard, our car and finances among all of the other things she does daily from sunrise to well past sunset, occasionally taking some time off for herself.
- I am grateful Kathy brings light into my darkened eyes as we continue on our life’s’ journey to reach another wonderful milestone together, and dream and plan for many more in the future.
Since my 20th wedding anniversary blog post, like some other people, we have endured financial difficulties, challenging living situations and experienced many other obstacles in our life which tests our health, marriage and friendship. We understand we are not unique and these circumstances are all part of life that we accept and will continue to do the best we can together as partners in life.
Does anyone want to share any reasons why they feel anniversaries are special? Are you celebrating an anniversary of any type in which you would like to include all of us in your celebration? Do you have any additional thoughts to help us all not lose track of what is important in life? Lastly, any comments on how we can maintain gratitude and love through challenges?
We all look forward to hearing from you.
Bill Tipton
Contributing Author,
Global Dialogue Center
http://www.globaldialoguecenter.com/
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/wdtipton
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