Just incredible... Thank you for this, Sachita.

This is going to be a bit difficult for me, because I feel as though I'm being a little whiny as well as a little sappy, but here goes...

I want to have a marriage someday. Not the wedding - people who overplan their wedding and demand perfection and go screaming Bridezilla drive me nuts. I want the kind of marriage both sets of my grandparents had. Both of those couples were thoroughly devoted to one another.

My Grandma and Grandpa loved hard and well. He fell in love with her intelligence, beauty and fortitude, and she mistrusted him because polio had left her with a short leg and infertility. He won her over, they adopted my Mom and uncle, they had the farm and the radio shop... they were happy. She died of Alzheimer's when I was 18, and a few years later we asked Grandpa, "Will you ever date again?" He said, "Nope. I'm married."

I wouldn't want my partner to live alone because of me, but I find his staunch devotion to not only my Grandma, but their marriage and what it meant to him, so very telling.

My Baba and Gido moved off their respective immigrant farms and lived in town so he could work for the railway. They built their house at the same time the Ukrainian community were building their church, and Baba asked Gido to plant a willow tree in the front yard so she'd have something to beat the kids with. :) When my Gido died suddenly of a stroke (a week after my Grandma died,) my Baba fell apart. They were symbiotic - in their elder years they'd been part of the Legion together, the Ukrainian Self-Reliance League, St John's Ambulance, numerous non-profits for special needs, etc. They lived their retirement years in mutual passion for service.

That's the kind of devotion I want. I want to be devoted to someone and support their desires and ideals for a better world and for a better love. I want the same from them. I don't want the wedding to be the best night of my life - I want my life to be the best possible and so much sweeter than I'd ever expected because someone with whom I have a mutual devotion is in it.