“M.”
“S.”
“A.”
Then she looked at me.
“Did you ever think we’d make it thirty years?”
I smiled.
“Not really.”
She laughed softly.
“Me neither.”
I touched her hand.
“But I’d do it all again.”
She leaned against my shoulder.
For a long moment, neither of us spoke.
Then she whispered:
“This is what forever looks like.”
I looked at the dress we’d folded together.
It wasn’t perfect.
The stitches weren’t all identical.
There were places where I’d had to undo entire sections and start again.
But maybe that was what made it beautiful.
Because after thirty years, I’d learned something.
A perfect marriage isn’t one without mistakes.
It’s one where two people keep choosing each other through them.
And sometimes love isn’t found in expensive gifts or grand gestures.
Sometimes it’s hidden in hundreds of quiet hours.
In tired hands.
In imperfect stitches.
In someone staying awake late at night because they want to make the person they love smile.
I had spent a year knitting Janet a wedding dress.
But the truth was, she had spent thirty years knitting a life with me.
And when I think about that night, I don’t remember the laughter anymore.
I remember her standing beside me.
I remember her hand in mine.
And I remember realizing that after thirty years, I hadn’t just married my wife.
I’d found the person I wanted to keep choosing for the rest of my life.
