09/15/2026
This is a long read, but trying to sum up 20 years of marriage in an Instagram reel is tough.
Twenty years ago, we started with almost nothing — a first apartment and a lot of nerve.
The good years were very good. We traveled whenever we could, and my favorite memories of Danielle are of her somewhere new, completely in her element. Dyson and Blu, and Stewie the cat, each got a piece of her heart they never gave back. Murphy and Arty have the run of the place now, and they have no idea what a high standard they're living up to.
We also went through years I wouldn't wish on anyone. We lost both of her parents. We lost her sister. She carried a grief I couldn't lift, and I learned that sometimes love isn't fixing anything — it's just refusing to leave. She got up anyway. She kept showing up for people, including me, on days when nobody would have blamed her for staying down.
I spent twenty years in the fire department — shifts, holidays worked, calls that followed me home. She never once made me choose. She made a home steady enough to come back to. Every year of that career has her fingerprints on it.
Along the way we collected people — friends who became family, the kind who show up with food when it's bad and stay too late when it's good. That's Danielle. People stay where they feel welcome.
Happy anniversary. I'd do all of it again, in order, as long as it ended here.
Not to mention lots of trophies and way to much money spent on car parts lol.
Love you to the moon D
