7 years, 6 jobs, 5 losses, 4 moves, 3 kids, 2 MBAs, 1 covenant…

On December 4, 2004 I married my friend, my prayer partner, my cheerleader, my husband, my love. Collectively, we’ve worked at six companies throughout our marriage. We’ve experienced three miscarriages and attended two funerals, Uncle Jim’s and Grandpa Early. We’ve lived in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and Texas. We’ve been blessed as the parents of three wonderful babies, graduated with two MBAs, and through all this we have been able to remain married.

The most important factor in our seven years of marriage has been our love for God. We pray together, out loud and with the boys. Of course, we could be doing more of this, but we have always turned to God in the good times. I say ‘in the good,’ because of course we lean on Him during the bad, but our relationship with God has not been an as-needed type of relationship. At the Caterpillar’s baptism class yesterday, we learned that married couples that pray together as a family have a one in eleven hundred chance of getting divorced. 1 out of 1100! Whoa, I like those statistics. So, in honor of our covenant relationship, we celebrate seven years of blessings.

Today we celebrate six years of love, companionship, happiness, sadness, blessings, favor, joy and pain. Happy birthday to our marriage!

I passed the place, because I was imagining a larger facility, based on the website. I soon realized they had a mega church location about half an hour away, but I was at basically the satellite location. The sanctuary was clean and modern. The praise team was already playing. The sounds consisted of a few guitars, drums and a keyboard. There was not the same flat notes and syncopation I’m used to in the Baptist church, but I kept my mind open. After the opening prayer everyone greeted each other. People walk around the church and shook my hand and introduced themselves. One of the things you can tell right away is how pretentious the members are, and this church extended their love immediately.

Before the sermon, the pastor asked the families who had attended the Saturday night marriage session to reflect their thoughts on it. I can honestly say that hubby and I are always game for marriage advice, but today I was especially prime for a word from God concerning the institution of marriage. I just saw Pelham 123, and Walter Garber (Denzel) is telling the subway hijacker, Ryder (John Travolta), that he accepted a bribe of $35,000 to help pay for his kids’ college tuition. Ryder asks how Garber’s wife responded, and Garber answers that she was angry but she eventually understood. Ryder says “that’s love,” and Garber, corrects him and says, “No, that’s marriage. That’s different.” It’s clear that Garber’s wife was serious when she said for better or for worse, because many people would have considered a felony grounds for divorce. There are sacrifices and compromises made and exchanged during marriage, and every once and while a revival is needed.

I am writing all of this because several of my friends are going through divorce right now, and it is by the grace of God our marriage has made it this far. I don’t know how to comfort them, other than to tell them I’m praying for them. Some circumstances have been more grim than others. One friend, her husband beat her and she and their one year old son kicked him out. Another, my best friend, asked her husband to move out after more than five years and twin boys. The lastest separation was a husband kicking his wife out, and she’s pregnant with his fourth child. Can you imagine what you would do? You eagerly plan for a union together, a life, ’til death do you part, and then find yourself homeless, or homeless and pregnant, or having a home and children and no father to interact with on a daily basis.

So today was prayer was that God would revive my heart. I asked him to forgive me for my sins, and to remove the spirits of selfishness and pride. I confessed that I love my husband. I am no longer waiting for God to change him. I truly believed that if hubby would just speak MY love language, phsyical touch and acts of service, that I would be on cloud nine 24/7. Even though hubby’s languages are quality time and physical touch as well, we speak two completely different dialects of the same language. I looove PDA, and hubby loves… well you know. Now, I am ready to change. The coolest part of the service was learning that there is a couples session every other Saturday, and that they are currently reading the Five Love Languages! I hope to return one day, as a family. I felt the word of God speak directly to me today, and I am not waiting. I immediately repented and changed course. For all of my married friends out there, today the word I heard was revive your heart, so revive it brother and sisters!

Dear Kevan,

How have we made it this far? Five years ago today we bumped into each other in the church before the photographer could capture our first expressions, and since then we have been living our lives, sharing ourselves with each other, experiencing and growing together. When our jobs were nearly 130 miles apart, we bore through our commutes to come home to each other every night.

When we pressed send on our business applications, we stayed committed to going together and it remained our number one priority. I love that we have mutual goals and we reflect that in each other. I love that we are both Physicists, and Electrical Engineers and Stern MBAs. I love that we have lived in four states together. I love that you sound so sexy and that you are the most awesome-ess daddy our boys have ever known.

I love that we approach problems totally differently. I appreciate the challenges and small mountains we have overcome. I made a covenant to you and to God to love you for the rest of my life, and today we celebrate that! I celebrate the highs and the lows. The highs are clearly the days our sons were born, walking across Radio City Hall’s stage together, and sipping macchiatos with you in Grand Central tonight. The lows were times that reminded us that God is in charge, in control and without Him we would not have made it this far.

Kevan, I love you, I love you, I love you to huge bits. Happy Anniversary.

In the spring of 2002 the NSBE national convention was held in Orlando, FL and I attended with a group of my colleagues from Morehouse College. We rode a bus down to Orlando from Atlanta and I was very excited. It was my first national convention but I had been to Orlando before and liked it so much that I was looking forward to a second visit. Hardly had I gotten off the bus in Orlando when I saw her; she was standing with one of her friends and I with some of mine. She had such poise and elegance – such an air of confidence that I immediately noticed her but I chose to say very little lest I be mistaken for someone who was only on the trip to make passes at the fairer sex. It was all about the focus thing for me.

Later that night, I attended one of the many social events that had been put on by the NSBE organizers and there she was again. This time she was on the dance floor grooving to the sounds of my native land – Trinidad. She was so comfortable in the atmosphere that I thought she had to have Caribbean parentage. Right there and then I made up my mind that I had to meet her. I had my chance the following day. Immediately following the Career Fair at the convention, a group of AUC (Atlanta University Center) students were chatting and we struck up a conversation. Before I knew it I was telling her that I had seen her the night before dancing to Caribbean music and I complimented her smooth moves (I think those words got me my first blush ). From that moment on, things seemed to move as though in natural progression from one enjoyable moment to the next. We had so much fun for the next few days that I felt like I had known her all my life and I had met her again after a long period of absence. We visited Universal Studios and took long walks late at night. We had meals together and she sometimes gazed at the stars in the heavens while I gazed at their reflections in her eyes in her beautiful, big, brown eyes. Yes, I was enthralled.

By the start of the summer of 2002, I was in love and hopelessly so. Never in my life had I met such a woman. She was beautiful, intelligent, athletic, and creative and she loved God. We complemented each other well. There was undeniable mutual attraction. That summer I attended a research program in Geneva, Switzerland and the thing that I looked forward to most wasn’t the great scenery and the chance to see Europe. I looked forward to Jolawn’s visit midway through the summer time. When she came we visited France together and attended a day at the Montreaux Jazz Festival. We took the most beautiful pictures together. But the best images are imprinted on my heart where nobody but me can access them. The only way to see the European countryside is in love. The end of the summer saw us officially become a couple and we have been ever since. My love for Jolawn has only grown stronger over the past two years or so and we have continued to enjoy each others company and encouragement in our spiritual walks in this life. I knew that she was the one for me and had known for some time before I proposed but I waited for the right time to pop the question. You see I’m a bit of a romantic and I wanted to make the occasion as memorable as I could. So, here’s how it took place.

I remembered that we had gone out together for the first time at the NSBE 2002 convention on the 19th of March. That evening was when we started our courtship and I wanted to use the significance of that date to ask for her hand in marriage. The convention this year was held in Dallas, Texas and I planned to attend the conference without Jolawn’s knowledge. She was a member of the General Mill’s recruiting team for the convention and I planned carefully to surprise her in Dallas. We had different travel arrangements and things went just as I had planned. I arrived in Dallas before her and did a bit of sightseeing and planning in preparation for her arrival because her flight arrived later than mine did. That was the 18th of March. The next day I dressed and attended the Career Fair just as I had done two years ago. This time was different though. This time I had a diamond ring in my pocket and an excited flutter in my heart. One of my schoolmates who did not know of my plans to surprise Jolawn alerted her to my presence in Dallas and Jolawn thought that she had figured out my surprise but she only knew part of it.

Later that night after the convention activities was when the real surprise was unveiled. I asked her back to my hotel room before we prepared to go to dinner. As she sat in a chair in the room, I opened the window blinds to reveal a stunning scene. The soft golden rays of a setting sun were being reflected and refracted in all different directions by the glass that covered an adjacent hotel building. It gave the room a sort of glow. The atmosphere was perfect. I mentioned this but I also noted that something seemed to be missing. As I pretended to search around the room for what was missing her attentions turned to adjusting the name tag that she was wearing since the Career Fair. The next time she looked up I was down on one knee in front of her holding open a small gift box with a lovely diamond ring in it. I said what my heart felt and I asked her to marry me. I think her attitude could have been described by words such as speechless, excited and surprised. I like the surprised part best because I achieved my goal. Jolawn said yes and here we are today making plans for a life together. I am a happy man.

You know on TLC, after a first-time mother sees her precious beautiful miracle for the first times she sheds tears of joy? That was not me. Of course, I selflessly, unconditionally love my children, but my first thought after I saw Amari was ‘he’s going to be an only child.’ Because I am never ever ever eva doing that again. So, with time, memory fades, and thus, I cannot remember feeling so burdened as a working mother years ago. I do not feel the guilt that so many moms say they experience. I am overjoyed to return working. I love what I am doing and where I am so, and I would not trade that to spend all day with my sons right now.

Whoa, yes, I just said I would rather be at work than playing, cuddling and kissing my boys all day. And there is a very logical reason for that. There are many, many things that come with the blessing slash chore of being a stay at home mom. The past two years at NYU I had so much flexibility that I had the best of both worlds, and now I am slave to the ‘get-through-the-day-so-that-you-can-get-ready-for-tomorrow’ task masking.

I woke up at 5:55 and hit the snooze button one time too many. After getting showered and dressed, it was 6:50 and then it was on to the boys. I got them dressed, took Amari to the potty, brushed his teeth, put oil on his hair, and then began all over again with Joshy. I changed it diaper, which thank God was just number 1, wait no, it was a number 2 this morning, got him dressed and then packed him in the stroller.

I put ice packs in the lunch boxes hubby packed the night before and then grabbed my laptop bag and headed for the car. It takes about 10 minutes to walk from our apartment door to the car and get both boys strapped into their carseats. We headed to daycare, and then parked and unstrapped, got the lunches and headed inside. I got Joshy and Amari set up at a table to eat breakfast (oh yeah, I put two bananas and cinnamon rasisin bagels into their bags before we left home). While they started their day off with a wholesome meal, I filled out their daily status forms, changed the sheet in Joshy’s crib and then initialled the sign in sheet.

By now it’s 8:10 and traffic on the Merritt is thicker than I would like. At 5:03 PM I head back to the car to do the reverse of everything I did this morning, except it’s the Thursday before Labor day, so traffic is really bad, and I’m not going to be there by 6, so I exit off the Merritt to trek through the back roads of North Stamford to make it to the daycare by 5:48. We get home (after a car ride full of questions about where’s daddy and where’s Traci), and daddy’s home! Woohoo! He fixes dinner while I finish a sell deck for work, and then I feed Joshy some spaghetti (with jerk – it was nasty, don’t do it). I put on a movie for Gadget and then head downstairs to exercise because I have not felt sweat drip down my face in the past seven days. And now I’m writing this post and it’s 10:34. I still have to shower and put up the dirty dishes. So what didn’t get done today? No one bathed the boys, but we did lay out their clothes for the week on Sunday.

And I will repeat this routine tomorrow.