Don Kowalewski
Writer. Ad Sales and Marketing. Social Media Content Creator. Aeropress Coffee. Makes the best salsa in the world.
Happy Anniversary!
Seems like a guy with a blog owes his wife more than a simple, “happy anniversary” Facebook post, right? The picture on the left is from a wedding we attended together in the late ’90s, I think. It definitely wasn’t our wedding, because I distinctly remember my wife’s dress was white on our wedding day. It was nineteen years ago, today, that we got married. It was Mother’s Day weekend. She bought me a watch on the eve of our wedding day. I just had that watch rebuilt and repaired.
I remember being nervous and excited on the eve of our wedding and we were just 23-years-old and I wasn’t expecting a gift. That watch, an antique-looking Citizen, is one of my prize possessions. It was such perfect, classy gift. It helped calm my nerves that night. What’s that, you ask? Isn’t it just a watch? Yes. It’s just a watch, and I’ve gotten a few since, but it was such a perfect watch, it was the first example of how well this woman knew me. I have exactly three watches and all of them were hand picked by my wife. Each is perfect.
She knows me better than anyone and better than I know myself.
I still remember, vividly, waking up at my parents house on the morning of my wedding day and looking out at a brilliant blue sky and thinking, hey, we’re going to have good weather for our wedding. This is gonna be great. “This” meant the day, the wedding, and the rest of our life together.
Truly. That moment and that morning still comes back to me in vivid, living color. I stared at the blue sky and wondered how other people greet the morning on the day they get married. I was fully awake and felt fully alive and excited. It was like Christmas morning, I guess . . . except I never remember a Christmas morning quite that clearly.
I just kept looking out the window, listening to the crows caw in the woods in my backyard and from downstairs I could hear my Mom and Dad talking, and a few other family members who were staying with us from out of town. Everyone was excited, but nobody was as excited as I was.
If my math is correct, my wedding day was the end of a 5-year courtship that started in the spring of 1992 when we both finally noticed each other. But I guess you could say it was the end of a 9-year crush, because I met her in the Fall of 1988. Yes, as a 15-year-old on my first day of school, she was the happiest, friendliest, nicest person I could possibly have met in my very first class on my very first day at a new school.
My wife is still the happiest, friendliest, nicest person I know (when I’m not pissing her off). I have tried many, many, many times to make her less friendly, happy, and nice through various mistakes and dumb stuff, but at the end of the day, she’s still happy, nice, and friendly.
In nineteen years, we’ve had many moments that are as vibrant and clear as that moment on the morning of our wedding – like holding our first-born together or having dinner at the breakfast nook in our first apartment. Or surprising her one time with a trip to Vegas to see her parents.
Vivid, unforgettable moments that all came from one, amazing unforgettable moment back in 1988 when I first met her, and then another unforgettable moment when I asked her on a date in the spring of 1992, and then when I sat on her parents couch in December of 1995 and gave her a rolling pin, cookbook, and apron and said, “these are all good things for you to have someday when I make you my wife,” . . . and then I said, “oh, and by the way, speaking of ‘being my wife'” and I got down on a knee and proposed.
Vivid, unforgettable moments.
Happy Anniversary and here’s to many more amazing moments.
Don Kowalewski 
You are such a talent Don. What a wonderful kelidescope of your steadfast relationship and marriage. Kathy is a very fortunate young lady to have you for a husband. I would have given anything when I was your age to have found someone to live my life with that had your tenderness, intelligence, kindness, talents, sense of humor and trustworthiness.
Just keep it up and when you drop your last kid off at college, sit back together and enjoy the ride into the sunset.
Your words humble me. I’m not nearly as good as you think I am but I’m working on getting better.