24 years ago in 1998 you were a year fresh out of college and you were ready to start molding your life to fit into God’s newly formed plan for you.
If my memory serves me correct, if I had paying attention, you were checking out the religious life while living in Kingston Mass.
I was living on the Cape with Marshall and his mother.
KRISTIN: I was a volunteer working with children and living with a religious community. And not too soon after, became very involved in searching for a religious community to become a part of. I was not planning on being part of the community I was volunteering with. But as a volunteer the government helped me pay off some of my college loans. If you want my advice, if you are working in a school never live in the same house as the principal. I’m just saying. While I was living with the Kingston Nuns I was actually 23 and not yet 24. .
While you were planning on living in a community with other women and becoming like Julie Andrews in the Sound of Music, I was planning on starting a video company.
LightHouse RockBridge. Marshall says he remembers the first thing we never did together. This company is among them.
The most I did with this video company is produce some stationary with our logo on it.
Had we only produced some good videos instead, I could insert it into this post.
Oh broken dreams.
When I brought over some friends one day to visit you and the nuns , we all piled in your basement laughing and talking.
The nervous nuns were weary of our friend on crutches thinking he would hurt someone from just being disabled.
Kristin: Mark we did not go downstairs because they were afraid Dave with his crutches would fall and a potential lawsuit would come next.
It seems that many women in religious life tend to have a negative view of disabled Catholics.
They are looked on with fear and as a potential lawsuit.
Several communities you checked out turned you away because you had epilepsy.
Had they accepted you, you probably wouldn’t be my wife today.
And life is better with you then without you.
What if you had never gone to live with the nuns at 24?
What if we had been married 24 years ago when you were 24?
How would our life be different today?
Kristin: Remember I was 23 when I was in Kingston and never had any intention of living with that community long term.
A lot of my memories of your 24th year have faded.
As both of our dreams and ambitions of that year have also faded.
But 24 years later not only are we still friends but we’re married.
Our memories will continue to fade of our younger years together.
And the current time we live in will fade also.
But regardless let’s make new memories together anyway.
Later on when this post was finished and I read it to Kristin, she corrected me about some things. Those corrections have been inserted into the finished post. You can see the difference in our memories and how she fills in some of the gaps that have lapsed in my recollection of events from that year.
This is not the most elegant well constructed post I’ve ever written.
But I am a active blogger when my brain and imagination are not on strike.
So even though the past two birthdays produced better posts then this,
I woke up this morning and thought, well I better try.
It’s now 10:50 AM and your still asleep.
Got to finish this up so we can go out and live out your special day.
And so it’s not too long, as you hate long posts I end with simply saying…
24 + 24 = 48
Happy 48th Birthday Krstin…
and also Happy Birthday to her twin sister Kathleen who just happens to turn 48 as well.
The Significance of August 25 | Mark Wilson (patheos.com)
When Kristin is Distracted (A Birthday Poem) | Mark Wilson (patheos.com)
I like to look at what was going on in the culture around other historical events such as my wife’s birthday.
When she was 24….
In 1998
Two Years Before the World Would End via Y2K
Some News Events
January 27 (my Birthday) U.S. First Lady Hillary Clinton appears on The Today Show, calling the attacks against her husband part of a “vast right-wing conspiracy”.
February 18 – Two white separatists are arrested in Nevada, accused of plotting biological warfare on New York City subways.
March 23 – The 70th Academy Awards, hosted by Billy Crystal, are held at Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. James Cameron’s Titanic wins a record-tying 11 awards (tied with 1959’s Ben-Hur) and leads with a record-tying 14 nominations (tied with 1950’s All About Eve), including Best Picture and Best Director. The telecast is the most-watched Oscars broadcast in history, garnering over 57.2 million viewers.
April 22 – The Disney’s Animal Kingdom theme park at Walt Disney World opens to the public for the first time.
May 28- Saturday Night Live star Phil Hartman is murdered by his wife in their home, who then killed herself when police arrived
June 4 – Terry Nichols is sentenced to life in prison for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing.
July 5 – Japan launches a probe to Mars, joining the United States and Russia as an outer space-exploring nation.
August 17 – Monica Lewinsky scandal: U.S. President Bill Clinton admits in taped testimony that he had an “improper physical relationship” with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. He also admits before the nation that night in a nationally televised address that he “misled people” about his sexual affair with Lewinsky.
September 29 – Iraq disarmament crisis: The U.S. Congress passes the Iraq Liberation Act, which states that the United States wants to remove Saddam Hussein from power and replace the government with a democratic institution.
October 7 – The United States Congress passes the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, which gives copyright holders 20 more years of copyright privilege on work they control. This effectively freezes the public domain to works created before 1923 in the United States.
November 3 – Jesse Ventura, former professional wrestler, is elected Governor of Minnesota.
December 19 – Lewinsky scandal: President Bill Clinton is impeached by the United States House of Representatives. (He was later acquitted.)
These Books Were Published…
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter, #2)- J.K. Rowling
Holes (Holes, #1)-Louis Sachar
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary-Simon Winchester
The Case for Christ-Lee Strobel
The Sunroom Hardcover – Beverly Lewis (Kristin has read several of her books)
These Hit Movies Were Released …
Saving Private Ryan
The Truman Show,
The Prince of Egypt
Mulan
You’ve Got Mail,
These Shows Were On TV
Home Improvement (1991 –1999)
Frasier (1993 –2004)
Everybody Loves Raymond (1996 – 2005)
7th Heaven (1996–2007)
Early Edition (1996 –2000)
These were some of the hit Songs of the year
My Heart Will Go On” – Celine Dion
This Kiss” – Faith Hill
Entertaining Angels- Newsboys
Love Me Good- Michael W Smith
The Shores of Botany Bay-Irish Rovers
Weird Al” Yankovic gets LASIK surgery to cure his myopia. At the same time, he grows out his hair and shaves off his moustache, radically changing his signature look.
St. John Paul II was Pope
Bill Clinton was President
Teresa Benedict of the Cross was canonized on 11 October 11, 1998 at St. Peter’s Basilica by St. Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II releases the encyclical Fides et Ratio “Faith and Reason”
On the relationship between faith and reason; condemning both atheism and faith unsupported by reason; affirming the place of reason and philosophy in religion .
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