So many things didn’t work out on our 28th wedding anniversary, but not the morning. Never the morning.

Maybe this is the secret of our marriage, I’ve never had high expectations. I married you because the thought of waking up with someone else undid me.

I played this scenario out in my mind when we were young, when I tried to let you go, tried to date other guys. Nice guys who would make nice husbands.

I’d get through dinner. A movie. Maybe even midnight, but how could I not wake up with you?

I imagined meeting someone else. Marrying someone else. Opening my eyes each morning to someone else, and then there was you. Always you. The someone I never got over. My lost love. My morning ghost.

So I married you. On a Tuesday night at 9:30 pm at Chapel of the Bells in snowy Reno. My eyes still red from crying after you gave me the ultimatum: walk away forever or marry you this day.

So I stood with you in front of a man dressed like Elvis. You and I dressed like students having just come from our night class together at UNR. Not because I thought we’d last 28 years. Or be happy for even a day. Or that down the road, our beautiful, bumpy road, Jesus would save us. And save our marriage too. But because I couldn’t face the morning without you.

And not once have I regretted seeing you in the morning.

I’ve regretted seeing you at night. Have gone to bed mad as hell. Have lain awake staring at a 12 o’clock ceiling, sick to death of you, but never in the morning.

You’re beautiful in the morning.

The morning of our 28th anniversary, we held hands and prayed together with coffee steaming in our faces, trying to recover from the flood evacuation. Both of us bone-weary raising five boys with our daughters grown and off on their own. Both of us without a gift for each other.

Only the gift of the morning.

No flowers, but you made me a fire. At 5:45 a.m., before dressing for work, you made me a fire as you do every winter morning. No card expressing your love. No shiny words or shiny jewelry. There’s never been a shiny thing about you. But you’re solid as a stone, and I love watching your muscles ripple when you split the wood that keeps me warm.

I remembered the morning of our church wedding–almost nobody knew we had eloped in Reno months earlier– when you made me sit on your lap and watch Bugs Bunny with you, and I thought Bugs Bunny really isn’t that funny. But I thought you were funny laughing at that silly rabbit cartoon.

One of your groomsmen passed out during our long Catholic wedding ceremony, and you got drunk at our reception with me sober as a judge–your judge– thinking what have I married? Then you slept with your half-eaten double bacon western cheeseburger with guacamole instead of me because you just had to go through the Carl’s Jr. drive-thru after our reception. Me in my 1989 wedding dress with sleeves the size of Texas, and my maid of honor, Christy, my best friend since the 7th grade, whispering beside me in the car, “Just let him get his burger. Things will be better in the morning.” And my bestie was right. The next morning at our bed and breakfast on C Street, I couldn’t stay mad at you.

I know both of us were disappointed this year about missing our anniversary trip. Bodega Bay our go-to getaway. We’ve made memories there. Promises there. Even a baby there six years ago. You said, “We should name him Bodega.”

“Absolutely not,” I said. “Let’s not tell anyone he’s our Bodega baby.” And then you told everyone. And your students turned it into a skit at their Christian high school. “That’s so embarrassing,” I said.

“We have a good marriage,” you said. “Those kids need to know that. They need to know you can stay madly in love when you’re married.”

I’m still so in love with you.

So until our anniversary trip someday, someway, I’ll celebrate my mornings with you.