March 7, 1992 was a Saturday.  It was also cloudy and rainy as many March days are, but the sun poked out just long enough for Celeste and I to dash across the parking lot of St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Triangle, VA to celebrate our marriage of exactly 30 minutes with 120 or so of our closest friends and family in the parish’s rec hall.  Bar-b-Q, beer, wine and dancing.  Then it was off to spend our wedding night at the Willard in DC.  Fourteen years later and I don’t think we’ve stayed in anything remotely that posh since.

This morning as Celeste and I were wishing each other happy anniversary I told her that, in retrospect, the first seven years seemed like a dress rehearsal for the last seven years.  Those first seven years were spent working long hours with low pay, popping out kids seemingly every other month and generally trying to figure out what being an adult was all about (for me…Celeste always had it figured out).

I also started a company that eventually failed in 1999–the 7-year mark of our marriage. The year was 1999 and it was a rough one for me and for us, but I look at that time as the forge that cast me as a much better man and cast us as a couple that will endure for the ages…or at least until the aforementioned kids put me six feet under.

The marriage vows say "for better or for worse" and Celeste endured much of my worst for seven years, but thanks to her giving me her best for all 14 years I think she turned out a much better man.  No man can, or should, ask for anything more.