That is a dangerous subject for a widow, but I have a wonderful comforting story that goes with the prompt.
When the Hero and I had been married two years, we came to a point in our marriage that many young couple face. Our goals and interests had pulled us in separate directions. He was involved in creating products for his dad's building materials company and an helping it grow. I was involved in nursing school and becoming a professional. We had a little daughter that we both loved dearly, but struggled to focus on family time. We felt our relationship falling apart. A friend invited us to go to a new movie that was out. We thought great! We haven't been on a date in ages. We went. Three hours later we were sitting on our couch at home crying for what we thought was a lost marriage. (Don't ever go to a movie about a broken marriage ending in divorce to bring yourselves together. Not a good thing.) We looked at each other and wondered if we would ever be the same.
Divine providence, God, whatever name you want to put with it, played a hand in our lives. A few weeks later, the Hero was asked to go to a business meeting in El Paso which was 600+ miles away. He wanted to go, but decided he would only go if his family could go with him and the trip would be by car. His dad hem and hawed then conceded.
There are many stories that came out of this trip, but the most important that we shared with everyone was the discovery we made and never let go of.
In the long trip to El Paso, ( anyone who has traveled across Texas knows... it is a LONG trip) we began to visit. We started sharing what our hopes were for our work, for our child, for our individual life and together. We actually talked the entire trip out to El Paso only to stop to sleep. In gaining insight into each other, we began to feel the love we had for each other blossoming again. We saw the person we had married again. It was exhilarating. We were excited. The Hero got food poisoning, and didn't make it to all his meetings, but we had plenty of one on one time together and with our little sweetie. It was heart expanding to experience our family becoming the core of our lives again.
By the time we made it back to Houston, we had turned back time to start over again. We were one again, with the resolve to never let our relationship deteriorate again. Our discovery was to share, to talk, to spend time together, not letting that which was not most important interfere with the most important. It worked for another 35 years until the Hero left this life. I am grateful for that time and for a Heavenly Father that provided the opportunity, a Hero that desired wholeheartedly for his marriage to be whole, my heart was there also. He is missed. There might be a better way to write the story, but it is very near and dear to my heart, and I am stretching trying to write about it. Hugs.
Sweet story. You were both very lucky.
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