2004 - Not a bad year

07 August 2004


Our vacation to Chincoteague in June with Addie was one of the best trips we ever took.  She had such a good time, and it was so good for her to be the only child.  She is wonderful company, so easy to travel with.  We played many hands of 500 Rummy along the way, in motel rooms and on ferry boats.  She and Hope got along well together, spent the night a couple of times and had the requisite number of tiffs for girls their age.  They both have a fairly well developed bossy gene, but Addie has the upper hand because she is more athletic and strong.  I hope their friendship will blossom through the years.

The week was good, way too short.  On the way home, we stayed at Hags Head, with an interim stop at Currituck Lighthouse and Duck, N. C.  The next day, we drove to Hatteras and took the ferry to Ocracoke.  Then we too the long ferry ride (2-1/2 hours) from Ocracoke to Cedar Island.  We spent that night in Myrtle Beach, which we would all like to forget. 

19 October 2004
And what of romantic love?  What of the way that Clint loves me and I him?  I loved him from the moment I met him.  I loved him without knowing anything about him except that he set off something in me that made me feel alive and excited.  And I desired him sexually from the first.  What is that?  He felt the same way about me, and in that we are probably two of the most fortunate humans on the planet.  What are the odds of that happening, of two people falling in love at first sight?   And what has kept that love alive?  What made us capable of weathering those first few years of marriage, when it seemed that our romantic love was not enough to keep a blended family together.  What about the time I burned Clint with a cigarette?  What about the time he slapped me?  Was that love?  What was that?  Why did it happen and then never happen again.  Did that core of love we shared protect us from going down the wrong path?  Was it a force for good and healing for us and the rest of the family?  I think so.
    And why do we love one another even more today than we did in the beginning?  I like to think that we worked at it, and we did, but I truly believe that we are just lucky, that for some reason, the forces in the universe conspired to give us this happiness, this peace with one another. 
    But has this love we share cost us in other ways?  I think many people see us a a unit, and island standing alone, not needing others.  Even Kristy said to me one time,  “You and Daddy have each other.  You don’t need anyone else.”  The fact that we share this love doesn’t mean we don’t have plenty of love to give to others.


2004 was as good as it got for the last years of Clint's life.  It was downhill from then, but I do have a fun post from 2007.