Looking back, looking forward

Yesterday marked nine years of marriage for my husband and me. In the week leading up to our anniversary, we kept coming back to the same question, "nine years ago, would you have predicted that this would be how our life would turn out?" And it's not the usual discussion that follows, you know the kind where you measure the success that you've had as a couple- is this the right career path? are you happy? should we have another baby? Instead, both of us are floored by what has occurred with our parents. If you would have asked us nine years ago who will live the longest, well it wouldn't have worked like this.

If you had asked us on our wedding day how our parents lives would play out, we would have predicted that both of our mothers would have lived well into their eighties, possibly their nineties. My dad would probably have died kind of young, maybe in his sixties, because of a pre-existing heart condition. My husband's dad would probably die first because he was a non-compliant diabetic who had already had a stroke and survived prostate cancer. But that's the thing about our inability to know the future.

My mom died this year at 53 due to a car wreck. My husband's mom died last year at 67 after a twenty month battle with brain cancer. And the year before that my dad died at 55 after a six year struggle with cancer. My father-in-law, he's alive and kickin' and the healthiest he's been in years. And I pray to God, he stays that way for at least another nine, and possibly nine more.