“I always cry at weddings,” said the 26-year-old visiting our home.

“Me, too!” his friend immediately agreed. “How can you not weep at a wedding?”

Had she been home, my daughter Victoria could have chimed in, “I sobbed throughout Monique’s wedding and used up all of the tissues I had stuffed in my bridesmaid’s bouquet.”

“I used to cry at weddings before I was married,” I added. “Now I just sit there, smile and pray that the couple knows what they are doing and that they remember the vows they are taking.”

This month will mark the 33rd year Michael and I have been married. How can it seem like we’ve been married forever and also feel as though the years have quickly flown by? But back to the wedding vows.

Michael and I wrote our own vows, which I hope to have saved somewhere. It would be interesting to see if we’ve kept those promises. The only promise I know that he broke was one he made when we discussed whether or not we would wed.

I had finished college, moved back home, was anticipating my first year of teaching and unsure about marriage. When pressed on the subject, I summarized my hesitancy with, “I don’t like to cook.”

His response should have been my clue that his future would not be in engineering, but sales. “If you marry me, I will cook every day,” he said. To his credit, he has been faithful to a few things we didn’t think to put into our vows.

Michael always heard our babies cry. Each and every time they woke up during the night, he would go to get them and bring them to bed for me to nurse.

He took care of me, too. At the time I felt very old, but I was only 33. Michael navigated my 117-pound, bald body through 11 months of chemotherapy. Let’s move on.

My husband continues to encourage my dreams for the future and helps me in the present to prepare for the family and friends I love to welcome into our home. We never dreamed of all of the precious souls God would choose to enrich our lives. With regards to traditional vows, we’ve had better and worse, richer and poorer. We’ve endured sickness and we’ve enjoyed health. And, 33 years later, we still encounter hurdles, continue to ask God for help, and He faithfully meets us where we are and shows us how to get to where we need to be.

I pray that it will be this way until death parts us.

Ronny Michel may be reached at rmichel@rtconline.com.