An Open Letter to My Niece

We interrupt our regularly scheduled blog for this breaking news: My niece is getting married today!

I wanted to share a letter I wrote to my niece and her new husband:
 

To the happy Couple:
 

Please stay that way…the happy couple. Love and marriage can be a tremendous thing. It will give you an incredible high and give you the confidence to lift cars, jump over buildings and sail to the moon. It is truly one of the greatest gifts you will ever know. 
 

The gift that marriage brings, however, must be cultivated; it must be cared for. Don’t take it for granted. Don’t forget that it’s there. If ignored, it will go away. If not properly watered, it will wither.

  

Enjoy each other’s company. Remember that you were friends first and lovers second.

  

Talk. Talk. Talk. TALK. Even if it’s hard. Even if it’s about a subject you hate or makes you uncomfortable. You have to do it. It’s important in order to keep the gift alive. To help you out, my wedding gift to you is a pair of long range walkie-talkies. Think of them as old school cell phones but at a much shorter distance and they can’t take pictures or play your favorite tunes (unless one is propped up against your stereo). With these, there is no excuse not to communicate.

  

The Great Don Henley once sang:
 

“So what makes us any different from all the others
Who have tried and failed before us
Maybe nothing, maybe nothing at all
But I pray we're the lucky ones; I pray we never fall.”

 

I pray you are the lucky ones as well and that you never fall and as long as you care, enjoy and talk, you never will. 

Now go get ‘em!

  

Uncle Kevin

  

I wasn’t really sure how to end that so I decided to act like it was halftime at a football game. Nothing like a coach pep talk to kick off your marriage, I always say. Actually, I don’t think I or anyone ever has said that but I love being original.

  

I guess the reason for posting this as my blog today was to show that despite what I may write in this thing, I am not against marriage. I think it's a wonderful institution and the best way to show and display the love two people share. But the marriage takes work; work from both to make the marriage and possibly more important, the love, last.

   

My wife and I didn't do the work and thus our marriage withered and died. It is one of the things that still makes me sad and goes back the the question I had in the first blog: Why? Why didn't we work harder? I'll never know the answer so the best I can do is make sure people know there is work and maintenance to a marriage. If you don't see it and recognize it, at some point, you'll be faced with wondering where the marriage went. 
 

And that's a terrible point to be at.

  

Next time: Living alone with three other people (for reals this time!)