20 Years

...20 years. This is how long Hubby and I had known each other as of last month. 2 full decades. 240 months. 7,300 days.

We did not mark the special day with fanciful celebrations. Instead, we quietly acknowledged the fact that we had known each other for more than half my life, and rejoiced in the notion that we are still as much in love with each other as 20 years ago.

We met as sparkly-eyed freshmen in his university. Destiny must have been working its adroit hand as it lured me all the way to his campus. Within weeks, we were dating regularly - deliriously in love, meeting each other almost daily, writing lots of love notes and poems to each other. Oh, those were the wonderful years.

6 years later, we went on a trekking trip to Nepal with some friends. On our first day of camp, we set up camp on a grassy knoll high up in the Himalayas, with resplendent snow-capped mountains all around us. At night, when our friends had retired back into their tents to hide away from the cold, he asked me to look up at the skies, and I was blown away by a dense blanket of dazzling, brilliant stars all above us. It was magical.

As I looked back at him, I saw him holding a little jewel case with a pair of diamond earrings, smilingly saying, "These are the stars from above" (or something like that!) and "Will you marry me?" I was overwhelmed and speechless, before uttering some unintelligible affirmation out of sheer happiness.

14 years later, with 2 additions to the family, we acknowledged that marriage is a whole lot of hard work, compromises and effort - but most importantly, love and companionship. There were good days and there were equally bad days. We had gone through much trials and tribulations as well as endless happiness. We still think about the same things at times. It is uncanny when he utters something and I would look at him, stunned, because I was just thinking about the same thing. It is remarkable that I sometimes still finish his sentences for him - and vice versa - because we know just what each other is thinking about. But most of all, we cherish each other's differences - how he could not even do a single forward bend despite his wife being a yoga practitioner for the past 10 years, and how I could not even understand a single music squiggle (yes, musical notes are squiggles to me!) when his favourite hobby is composing music.

I recently chanced upon this little note of scrap paper which contains an unforgettable poem that Hubby wrote on a lovely morning in London 3 years ago as I slept. We both read it again and were transported to that memorable trip. For me, I was touched that he could still write this poem even after 9 years of marriage then, and his scribbles and cancellations on that scrap paper made the poem even more precious.

Here's the poem he wrote:

My beautiful wife
In the early morning light
Lips pristine and locked
Face a perfect scenery
Eyes like the morning sun,
Waiting to rise
From the slumber sleep
Time never moves
As she whispers
Each breath
Lips part slightly
Air moves in
I place my kiss -
Morning rises

~ 12 July 2009, Sunday, London