Eight Twenty Eight

I had a blast at my sister's recent wedding.  While at this age I have given up hopes of having anything too fancy when it's my turn to get married, I still absolutely love weddings.  I love seeing the bride in a beautiful dress,  the beautiful flowers and decorations, and of course the special food.  Weddings are also very emotional.  There is nothing more touching than seeing a groom tear up when he sees his bride.  Or a father cry after he gives his daughter away.  We ladies cry at weddings too, but men tend to be more stoic, so it makes me tear up a little more when I see them cry.

Like most women, I also love the thought of getting married.  I look forward to the opportunity to commit my life to my husband and for him to do the same.  I want to grow my family with little ones that look like a special mix of the two of us.  I also want my son to feel the responsibility of being a big brother and experience a two-parent household.  In my mind, weddings and marriage are absolutely dreamy.

It seemed fitting that one day after my sister's wedding, I might curl up with the book Eight Twenty Eight by Ian and Larissa Murphy.  I vaguely knew it was a story about a married couple and their struggles after the husband was injured in a car accident.  After digging in (and not being able to put it down), I realized that it was about so much more. 

Eight Twenty Eight chronicles Ian and Larissa's courtship which abruptly changed course after Ian was seriously injured in a car accident.  They were planning for marriage, but the accident left him with a brain injury that would change him forever.  Despite all of the challenges that came with his injury and recovery, Ian later still proposed to Larissa and they married.  The beauty of the book was how Larissa, and later Ian, described the blessings in this tragedy and how she seemed to never give up hope that they might still be able to marry.  She fought to stay faithful even when it remained unclear how much Ian would recover. 

Their story opened my eyes to the fact that weddings and marriage are about a lot more than dreamy notions.  They are really about love.  Love that must endure a wide range of life's ups and downs.  What if you are not blessed with children?  What if an extended period of unemployment leads to financial ruin?  Or what if an accident changes one of you forever?  Eight Twenty Eight is a true love story.  May we all be so fortunate to have such a romantic love in our lives.