Still Falling

   I came up to kiss our girls good night, wishing I didn't have to go to work for the night. When I saw you pull your brown hair back to kiss their little foreheads.  For a moment, my breath caught when you looked up at me.  Your clear blue gaze arrested me just like it has since the day I first met you...

  

   I can easily recall walking into the bank where you worked.  You were at the drive-thru window, wishing your customer a good day when I walked up to the counter.  You were the only one there, looking elegant in a pant suit, your brown hair loose around your shoulders.  Then you turned around and when I saw your face, I knew, I just knew you were everything I would ever want.

  I ached with the urge to see you smile from then on, and I wanted nothing more than to be the reason for that smile.  I wanted to see myself in your eyes, I wanted to occupy your heart, for I knew you were in mine.  But at that point I felt utterly unworthy of even being one of your thoughts.  It was enough for me to walk into that bank and hand you a stack of bills, deliberately jotting down the wrong quantity on the deposit slip, just so I could watch your lips move as you counted out each bill.  You must have thought I was hopeless when it came to counting money, but it was just sweet torture to watch your lips, dying inside with the need to crush them with mine.  Oh, how I loved that look you'd give me, shaking your head, yet dazzling me with your grin.  How I cursed that damn thick counter for effectively keeping me from reaching up to feel the delicate skin of your cheek.

  

   I remember the sudden meaningful glances we exchanged during those two-minute visits. I remember trying to convince myself that it was enough, and it was, until the night you came to that party.  Everyone around us simply ceased to be and there was only music, and you.  I held onto you as though I was holding a fragment of a dream.  When you looked up and fixed me with those sapphires I could see in them the man I never thought I'd be, and when you slowly closed the distance and your lips touched mine, I knew I'd never be the same again...

   The day I waited for you at the altar, precisely thirteen years ago today, I didn't think it was possible to be any more in love with you.  I still think the vision of absolute beauty that walked down the aisle that day was the best dream of my life.  Little did I knew that this dream was only beginning, and I never thought that thirteen years later I'd still have yet to stop falling in love with you.

   I still look forward to that first kiss of the day.  I still wait impatiently for you to wake and come into my arms, allow me to lose myself in your eyes and feel that flutter in my chest as your lips touch mine.  Thirteen years of marriage have done nothing but intensify everything I feel when you're near me, and how could I not feel that way, when I fell in love with the girl you were, only to fall even deeper for the woman you've become, and then reach a new level of loving you for the amazing mom that you are.  

   Happy Anniversary, my Sheri Sue, I have yet to stop falling for you   

    Javier