Jan Clears the Deck!
Estimated reading time: 9 minutes, 33 seconds
She reached up and pulled my face to hers.
“I have always loved you! I know I made the right choice,” she said as she kissed me.
She then showed me her iPhone, still on the home screen.
“I do not even remember their names, silly. All I have ever wanted was you!”
I kneeled and hugged her.
“I love you too,” I said as my voice cracked with tears pouring down my cheeks.
I sat on the floor next to her, and we chatted about our memories of four decades together.
“We probably should go to bed,” she said. “We can continue our conversation in the morning.”
I helped her up. She was very wobblily.
“How much did I have to drink?”
“There were two wine bottles, and both were empty when we left the restaurant, ” I said.
When we entered the bedroom, she said she wanted to sit on the bed for a minute. I helped her up.
“I have not had that much wine in a long time….”
I returned to the living room to get her water glass. I filled it with more crushed ice and placed it on her nightstand.
I proceeded to get ready for bed. As I exited the bathroom, I asked Jan if she needed help getting up. She tried to get up but could not rise from her reclining position.
I offered my arms to help her, but instead of hugging me, she kissed me.
“Looks like you are a little aroused, and I am too,” Jan said as she smiled at me. “I can brush my teeth later if you can help me get out of my dress.”
I crawled into bed and said, “In due time, my dear, the dress will come off….”
Jan’s Three Commitments
We all have choices in our lives that can change us for better or worse, depending on how we decide. Jan had three opportunities to confirm our love for each other, and each time she selected me!
I have written about how we met in several posts. Jan Clears the Decks is the first to clarify Jan’s commitment to me despite concerns from friends. I plan to write more about this period.
My overall goal is to fully tell the story of each of Jan’s three commitments to me.
- The first was the day we met. She could have chosen not to fall in love with me. Many of her friends and family opposed our relationship. This post is the first to reference the options she had explicitly.
- The first post to discuss marriage is about our wedding proposal, and the second is about telling our parents. The second was the day we married. Many of her friends and her family questioned our plans to marry.
- Jan and I almost ended our marriage in the first year. The last was a problematic situation early in our marriage. I will always be grateful that she stayed with me.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
After almost 48 years, I recently lost my wife, Jan Lilien. Like The Little Prince, Jan and I believed that “The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart.” This blog is a collection of my random thoughts on love, grief, life, and all things considered.
