Third Wedding Anniversary Quotes

I worry I am coming perilously close to violating both of those promises. But still. It is our third wedding anniversary and I am alone in our apartment, my face all mask-tight from tears because, well, because: Just this afternoon, I get a voice mail from Nick, and I already know it’s going to be bad, I know

Kristen and I always have a lot to celebrate at the end of June. First there’s Father’s Day, followed by our wedding anniversary and my birthday. But prior to the Best Practices this two-week season of parties didn’t inspire much of a celebratory mood. It always felt strange celebrating Father’s Day, given that my parenting skills had been something of a disappointment for the first three years, and the tears that Kristen had shed on our third wedding anniversary spoke rather poignantly to the fact that our marriage hadn’t been much to celebrate, either. That left my birthday, a day that was all about toasting the birth of the very person who had made Kristen’s life miserable.

POEM#1167 ‘COMMITMENT’ Clark kissed his wife on their first wedding anniversary. On their second anniversary he kissed her twice. On their third anniversary he kissed her four times. And on their fourth he kissed her eight times. On their fifth, sixth and seventh anniversaries he kissed her sixteen, thirty-two and sixty-four times, respectively. By their tenth anniversary he was kissing her 512 times and they both developed rashes and were late for their dinner reservation. On their silver wedding anniversary, they perished – Exhausted and thirsty. Only 800,005 kisses into the contracted 16,777,216. Blinded by romance. Killed by mathematics.

English and half Nigerian, Stacey had never set foot outside the United Kingdom. Her tight black hair was cut short and close to her head following the removal of her last weave. The smooth caramel skin suited the haircut well. Stacey’s work area was organised and clear. Anything not in the labelled trays was stacked in meticulous piles along the top edge of her desk. Not far behind was Detective Sergeant Bryant who mumbled a ‘Morning, Guv,’ as he glanced into The Bowl. His six foot frame looked immaculate, as though he had been dressed for Sunday school by his mother. Immediately the suit jacket landed on the back of his chair. By the end of the day his tie would have dropped a couple of floors, the top button of his shirt would be open and his shirt sleeves would be rolled up just below his elbows. She saw him glance at her desk, seeking evidence of a coffee mug. When he saw that she already had coffee he filled the mug labelled ‘World’s Best Taxi Driver’, a present from his nineteen-year-old daughter. His filing was not a system that anyone else understood but Kim had yet to request any piece of paper that was not in her hands within a few seconds. At the top of his desk was a framed picture of himself and his wife taken at their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. A picture of his daughter snuggled in his wallet. DS Kevin Dawson, the third member of her team, didn’t keep a photo of anyone special on his desk. Had he wanted to display a picture of the person for whom he felt most affection he would have been greeted by his own likeness throughout his working day. ‘Sorry I’m late, Guv,’ Dawson called as he slid into his seat opposite Wood and completed her team. He wasn’t officially late. The shift didn’t start until eight a.m. but she liked them all in early for a briefing, especially at the beginning of a new case. Kim didn’t like to stick to a roster and people who did lasted a very short time on her team. ‘Hey, Stacey, you gonna get me a coffee or what?’ Dawson asked, checking his mobile phone. ‘Of course, Kev, how’d yer like it: milk, two sugars and in yer lap?’ she asked sweetly, in her strong Black Country accent.

By our seventh anniversary, we had five kids and weren’t done yet. Raven was blessed with easy pregnancies and could run around until the moment of delivery. Oh, and did those deliveries become legend. When River was born, the whole crew was laughing their asses off in the waiting room because of Raven’s profanity-laced rants. Our twins came two years later. During their deliveries, a drinking game started with the crew and club guys. Every time Raven screamed a cuss word, Tucker told the guys at the bar and they’d take a shot of whiskey. Half of the guys were wasted by the time Savannah was born. As Avery joined her sister, the other half of the bar was just as drunk off their asses. The obstetrician nearly begged Raven to use pain meds. She refused of course. No one was telling her what to do. For Maverick’s birth, the hospital moved Raven to a room at the end of the hall and kept the other laboring mothers as far away as possible. Another change the third time around was how Raven refused to allow the club guys free fun based on her laboring pains. To play the drinking game, they had to donate a hundred dollars into the kids’ college fund. We figured at least one of our kids would want to do the education thing. The guys donated the money and got ready for Raven to let loose. In her laboring room, she even allowed a mic connected to overhead speakers at the bar. Despite knowing they were all listening, my woman didn’t disappoint. One particular favorite was motherfucking crustacean cunt. When Maverick’s head crowded, she also sounded a little bit like a graboid from Tremors. Hell, I think she did that on purpose because we’d watched the movie the night before. Raven was a born entertainer. That night, we added a few thousand dollars to the kids’ college fund, the guys had a blast getting wasted to Raven’s profanity, and I welcomed my second son. Unlike his angelic brother, Maverick peed on me an hour after birth. I knew that boy was going to be a handful.

Kristen and I always have a lot to celebrate at the end of June. First there’s Father’s Day, followed by our wedding anniversary and my birthday. But prior to the Best Practices this two-week season of parties didn’t inspire much of a celebratory mood. It always felt strange celebrating Father’s Day, given that my parenting skills had been something of a disappointment for the first three years, and the tears that Kristen had shed on our third wedding anniversary spoke rather poignantly to the fact that our marriage hadn’t been much to celebrate, either. That left my birthday, a day that was all about toasting the birth of the very person who had made Kristen’s life miserable. But after fifteen months of hard work and soul-searching, Kristen and I were finally able to look forward to this season with real anticipation. We were communicating again, and I was beginning to hit my stride as a father and as a husband. I was folding laundry, Kristen was taking her first uninterrupted showers in years, and when America’s Next Top Model wasn’t on during its regularly scheduled hour, I stayed cool as a cucumber. And that gave us plenty of reason to break out the streamers and party hats. Heck, we could have made a layer cake. In light of all this, I decided that June would be the best time to embark on my most ambitious Best Practice yet: being fun.

On January 25, 1920, Sophie Halberstadt, mother of Ernst and Heinerle and pregnant with her third child, died just one day before her seventh wedding anniversary. The cause of death was fulminant influenza pneumonia (E. Freud et al., 1976, p. 26; Gay, 1988, p. 391; Schur, 1972, p. 318). Max took Ernst into the living room, sat him on his knee, and told him the one thing that no father wants to tell his child—that his mother was dead. Ernst shut down. Freud later wrote, “When this child was five and three-quarters, his mother died. Now that she was really ‘gone’ (‘o-o-o’), the little boy showed no signs of grief” (S. Freud, 1920/1955, SE 18, p. 16). Max set up, on the crossbeam of the door frame, a small swing on which Ernst anxiously swung for hours on end in a desperate attempt to soothe himself.