The Best Forever

My wife is putting Sammy to bed - it's her night tonight.  I stand in the bathroom, brushing my teeth and half-listening to the story she's reading.  I turn around, and move to watch from the entryway of the bathroom.

She sits sideways on a tiny black stool with one elbow resting on top of the crib.  She is reading one of her favorite childhood stories to him animatedly. Her book is turned towards him so he can peer into the book and wonder what the pictures are.  He concentrates.  For the first time all day, he is awake and motionless, trying to figure out the connection between Mama's voice and this flimsy square colorful thing she is holding in front of his face.

Her voice vividly impersonates the characters.  She makes sound effects the amplify the story, and whenever she does, Sammy will flash the faintest smile of comprehension.  He loves her so dearly.

And in this moment before bedtime, there is so much ecstasy oozing out of everyone in the room - Sammy ecstatic to be spending time with Mama, my wife ecstatic to be interacting with her son for one of the first times ever, and me...

I'm ecstatic watching the two of them feed off each others' happiness. I'm ecstatic that we've been blessed with such a beautiful son.  That we've been able to stick together since the beginning of our relationship - six and a half years of some of the most difficult but amazing times in both of our lives.  I'm ecstatic that my wife agreed to marry me, and that we'll celebrate it tomorrow.

Though we've only been married two years, it feels like we've known each other forever.  The best forever one could hope for.