Calendar on the wall: A true-life event

39 Anniversary.

          The calendar on the wall was already marked in red: December 24 - 39 years. The date glowed brighter than any holiday lights because it commemorated a promise that had survived a tide of doubt, divorce papers, and whispered wagers.

          I had grown up the third of six children, a middle child in a family that treated love like a game of cards. The oldest brother had once been the darling of the clan, his marriage a textbook example of stability. Then, in his forties, a scandal erupted: he confessed to an affair with a woman already bound to another husband. The revelation rippled through the family, and the inevitable bets began. Cousins placed their chips on whether his marriage would survive; strangers at family gatherings muttered, "He'll end up alone." Yet he and his wife never divorced. They drifted apart, each taking a different state at home, but they kept the legal bond, as if a signature could somehow redeem a broken heart.

          My youngest sister proved that the family's love was not immune to misfortune. She married young, divorced, remarried, and divorced again within a decade. Her friends whispered that our family's "curse" was inevitable, that every sibling's marriage would implode before the next birthday cake could be cut. Five divorces later, I only remained married, and even that was a fragile filament in my family's storm of skepticism.

          It was during my junior year at college that I first heard her voice. Our first conversation took place over a clumsy, noisy dormitory phone line. Hours slipped by; our voices rose and fell like a tide, touching everything from "What are you studying?" to "Do you think there's a reason we end up talking to strangers at two a.m.?

          By the time this call finally ended, we had spoken for more than six hours, our words spilling into the night as if we were trying to fill a void we could not name.

          My future wife wanted to meet in person almost immediately. "It feels like we're already walking side by side," she said, the optimism in her tone a bright thread in the early winter air. I, however, balked. I remembered a night two years earlier when I'd asked a girl at a bar to dance. Her answer was crisp, a cruel joke that still lingered in his memory: "Yes. But not with you." The sting of rejection lingered, and I wrapped myself in a cautious shell.

          When we finally met, I clearly remember seeing her for the first time. I immediately regretted coming. I have never considered myself remotely handsome. Here, with me, stood the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, and I still believe that to this day.

          In the years that followed, we built a home of small rituals. Saturdays were for the bookstores, evenings for reading aloud to each other, and every anniversary, we write a promise on a slip of paper and tuck it into a jar. We have called each other "best friend" more often than "spouse," because the line between love and friendship blurred into something more profound. The jar, now swollen with 38 promises, smelled faintly of cinnamon and paper testament to our perseverance.

          But hope, as it often does, was tested again when she received a diagnosis that made the word "terminal" echo through the corridors of our ordinary life. The doctors spoke in softened tones, the words sliding over the sterile tiles: Stage IV, limited time. I felt a frigid wind sweeping through the familiar warmth of our home. The same family that had placed wagers on our marriage now leaned in, their whispered bets turning into prayers. Some relatives, long silent, offered condolences; others still asked, "Do you think she'll make it to the 40th anniversary?"

          Each night, after the house settles into darkness, I sit beside her in bed, my hand covering her. I whisper a Prayer that had no script, no formal structure, only a single, stubborn hope: Give me 39 more years. These words are not a plea for more time alone, but for more moments shared--more laughter echoing in the hallway, more quiet mornings where the sunlight slipped through the curtains just so, more chances to watch her smile curl like a sunrise.

          So, tonight, before our anniversary, I stood again before our wedding portrait. I imagined a future that might never come, yet visualized the present — every small victory that had carried us this far. I thought of our life together as a tapestry woven from threads of joy, doubt, resilience, and love.

          When the morning light of December 24 finally slips across our bedroom wall, her hand is still warm in mine. The jar of promises sits on an end table, a place of honor and hope on the nightstand. Tomorrow, I will write, I will love you in every breath, even when the world tells us we cannot.

          In the end, the only thing that mattered was the love that filled the space between us, a love so steady that even when the clock ticked toward an ending, it whispered, "We have already lived a lifetime.

          I love you, my Princess.

          John