January 15th, 2002

 

 

I know I have spoken of this day before in this blog.  But I feel I must speak of it again.

 

Today is January 15th.  It is a special anniversary for Tad and me.

 

On January 15th, 2002, Tad was visiting me in Estonia.  That day, I told him that we just had to go to Kaali, the crater lake about fifteen miles outside of my town.  I had heard a legend that if lovers walked around Kaali, holding hands the whole way, they would stay together into eternity! "Come on!" I'd said. "We HAVE to do it. It will totally cement our love!"  The whole time Tad was visiting me, we were making jokes about cementing our love.  So we took a bus there and walked around the lake, pictured above.   Afterward, I had planned that we could hang out in the local pub until the bus came about five hours later. 

 

We went to to the door and pulled on it. Locked. The pub was closed until spring. I had not known that.  What were we going to do for five hours in Estonia. Outside. In January?!

 

We went into the grocery, which was open and they gave us empty milk crates to sit on and we bought candles and snacks and a bottle of champagne and a bottle of cartoon champagne (which was what Tad called the non-alcoholic bubbly I liked to buy) and we had a winter picnic until the bus finally came to take us home.

 

January 15th, 2003, I was home from the Peace Corps and with Tad.  We decided to celebrate the anniversary of this date with an outdoor picnic in Milwaukee.  After the picnic we went back to my apartment and watched a movie.  In the beginning of it, the phone rang.  I had an ear surgery scheduled for the following day, to remove a benign tumor in my ear)  It was my ear surgeon. 

"Alie. I can't do the surgery tomorrow." He said. 

"Why?"

"Ummm. You're pregnant."

I don't remember how I ended the conversation.  I remember that I fell to my knees and that Tad and I talked late into the night about this unexpected news, with a little counsel from my parents.

And now we have our Coen.

 

And on January 15th, 2004, my parents took four-month-old Coen for a few hours while Tad and I had our winter picnic.  And the next day I finally did have my ear surgery.

 

January 15th, 2008, was the first winter in our new house.  I had forgotten. And after Coen was tucked in bed and two-month-old Lucy was asleep in the bassinet in our room, Tad took my hand and pulled me out to the front porch room of our house.  It was freezing cold in there.  Candles were lit. Lucinda Williams was playing. And there were cupcakes on plates.  And it was perfect.

 

And today is January 15th, 2013.  I have to work tonight, but I will be home at 8:30 with treats and a bottle of bubbly. And we'll have a dessert picnic in the cold front porch after our children are all tucked in. 

 

And I'll think about how lucky I am to have cemented our love in such a way.