Boundless Love

BOUNDLESS LOVE

After Ashley and I got married, we drove to Houston that night to do a quick little getaway as a celebration or abbreviated honeymoon (our real one wouldn’t be for another 2 months). On the way into town, we talked about the wedding and the dinner and who all was there and what people said and just how smooth everything went. Ashley told me all the different things that brought her to tears during the wedding. I think something that moved the both of us deeply was that Michael’s family was in full attendance. 

This was something that was so special to her as she still kept a very close relationship with them. She had been close to all of them ever since she married Michael and they all only became closer when Michael passed away.

I was honestly expecting Michael’s family to be resistant towards me, or at least hesitant. I was very wrong. I have never felt more loved in a family.  I had a pre-established relationship with Preston, Michael’s stepfather and a mission work friend of mine as well as Michael’s youngest sister Meggan. This family had a lot of reasons to reject me. I’m a good bit younger than Michael was, I had no experience parenting children, from what Ashley has told me, I’m nothing like Michael (that’s not a good or bad thing, apparently we just had very different personalities), the list could go on. However I am convinced that they were rooting for Ashley and me in a way. I know it hasn’t been the easiest thing watching us come together knowing that it should still be their son or brother, but I never got that feeling from them once.

There were two people who stood out to me the most on our wedding day. One was Kay Onstead. Kay is Michael’s grandmother. I met her at church one morning shortly after Ashley and me started dating. I have always enjoyed talking to her. She is probably the most generous woman I have ever met. Kay was the first woman I ran into when I arrived at the wedding venue and she almost instantly requested that I become her grandson. I should mention that my last biological grandparent died before I was even 10 years old so I did a lot of growing up without a grandparent around. Needless to say, that meant the world to me. Kay or Mee Maw as I now call her is a woman whom I have always admired and I am thrilled that I have another grandparent again. I have thoroughly enjoyed the conversations that we have had since marrying Ashley. I have already learned so much from her. I can only imagine how difficult it must have been to lose a grandchild. Yet she was always very accepting and loving of me while Ashley and me were dating. 

I think that the other person who blew me away along with Mee Maw was her daughter Ann, Michael’s mom. I know that she loves me, but there is no way that it could have been easy watching her son’s wife marry someone else. It would serve as a solidification that Michael really was gone. Before the wedding started, she went into Ashley’s room while she was putting her gown on and told her that she was so happy for her. She then went to me, and with tears in her eyes told me the exact same thing. Besides the tears of joy I had when Preston announced us as husband and wife, this was the only other time that I cried. I know that in a perfect world, Michael is still here. I know that Ann wishes for that knowing that it won’t happen. I know that she misses him like a true mother misses her child. Ann Hill is an amazing woman whom I will always admire. She is a woman whom I will also view as a mother figure for the rest of my life. 

Ann later posted on her Facebook how bittersweet the wedding was for her and I can only imagine. I know that I am not Michael and I never will be. I will never even come close. I do know, however, that the way I treat Ashley, the way I treat Audrey and Addison, and the way I treat his family are my tribute to him. It is a small way that I honor the amazing legacy of Michael Bonine. 

Sometimes I can’t stop questioning why God does or does not do this or that. Sometimes I feel like I deserve an answer. Most of the time I try my best to be humbled by His plan and at the very least, let His love and grace catch me. I see Michael’s personality all the time in Audrey and Addison. I like to think we would have been friends. I can only pray that he is looking down approving of the life that I lead and the way I lead his family.

I hope to one day have the boundless love that Kay and Ann show me over and over again. I cannot express how honored I am to be a part of their family and I can only hope that I am honoring their son/grandson in the way that he truly deserves.

Catching Up

Well it’s been forever since I actually wrote something on this so I thought that I would do some updates since I’m driving from Nashville to Huntsville which is a grueling 12 hour drive. I think the last time I updated on anything we had just moved into our new home. We are still there and the house feels more like home each day. As much as I love my parents/the house I grew up in in Nashville, I am coming more and more to accept our home as home.

I guess the biggest thing I should update on is that we got married a couple of months earlier than actually planned. Our original date was set for November 23rd, however, there were some complications with what we were wanting to do. 

Our wedding was originally going to be at First Colony, then we decided to do a big wedding at our home church in Huntsville. That’s where it gets interesting.

About a week and a half after we moved into the house, Ashley started her job teaching at the local intermediate school. Soon after, the girls started in their new schools as well. Addison did great adjusting and she is repeating kindergarten, she was really young to be in kindergarten last year and now we can say that holding her back was a good decision, she has a great teacher and has learned quite a bit. She tells people that she was so good at kindergarten that she gets to do it again.

Audrey had a tough time in school from a social aspect. It wasn’t so much that she couldn’t make friends, it was who she had to be around and that was a major negative influence on her. After the first quarter was over, we had her transferred to a local private school that is very close to my office. She has loved being there. 

Ashley had a tough time transitioning from a private Christian school to a Title I public school. Many rules change and so does the behavior of the students whom she works with. She recently changed from teaching 5th grade to 6th but most of the problems stayed the same. Did I mention that she was in the process of getting her masters in education? So here is the rundown of everything she had going on this past semester:

Full Time student (12 hours)

Full time teacher

Mommy of 2

Wedding planner

After discussing with several people, I came to the realization in the beginning of September that as the future head of a household of 4, I needed to make a decision that helped make things a little bit less difficult on my future wife. Since I have no control whatsoever on the job or the masters, I went to work on a new wedding plan. 

There is a gazebo that overlooks the lake that is in our subdivision. I went and talked to the administrators at the clubhouse and planned to have a wedding there. I called all of my family and Ashley’s and began putting together a family only wedding. That weekend I took her to the gazebo and asked her to marry me there 2 weeks from that day. She agreed and things began to really take shape. We only had one problem, however it was a big one.

The gazebo stands on a hill and in order for there to be a wedding where she could walk down an aisle and people be there, it needed to be completely dry on the hill. It rained for two and a half days leading up to the wedding. I knew that we needed a backup plan. I talked to our church secretary thinking that just going to our church and doing it there would be fine. Only then did I discover that the church had already been booked for a wedding that same afternoon and that it was impossible to have it there. I finally went to the only other place that I knew could do weddings. It was just on the outskirts of town. An actual wedding venue called Magnolia Lake. There was a beautiful outdoor chapel pavilion that overlooked a pond and it just so happened to be available that day. We were wanting to get married on Saturday the 21st of September and I booked the place on Tuesday, September 17th. The coordinator said that this was by far the closest to a wedding date that she had ever booked a place. We weren’t surprised.

My family drove out from Nashville. Her family came out from all over southeast Texas. Ashley’s youngest sister Katie even flew in from North Carolina. The weather was perfect. Preston Hill, the stepfather of Ashley’s late husband, Michael and a good friend of mine for over a decade was our officiant. He did an absolutely tremendous job. We exchanged rings and I gave rings to both Audrey and Addison as well. We celebrated at a Mexican restaurant down the road. My dad told me recently that the best idea I ever had was marrying Ashley, the second best was having a small family wedding instead of a blowout wedding.

So my wife and I have now been married for three months and I have to say that it’s been fantastic coming home to a wife and two girls. We are actually in the process of adding a male puppy just to up the boy count in the house. A boxer puppy named Triton will come home to the Lankford house in early 2014. 

I absolutely love the youth ministry that I’m in and the church is terrific. The girls are really enjoying school too. I have picked up playing golf and it has been fun learning how to play and improving upon my game. Golf is the only sport that I ever picked up and wasn't very good at which makes me want to play that much more. Ashley got me a new set of very nice clubs as a wedding gift (I got her a new laptop). I try to play as often as I can with the weather permitting. I’m still pretty bad but not nearly as bad as I used to be. I’m shooting right around 99-101 right now which I don’t think is too bad considering I have never had a lesson and have only been playing consistently for about 4 months now. 

We still chose to go on our honeymoon on November 24th which was a Royal Caribbean cruise out of Galveston to Jamaica, Grand Cayman, and Cozumel, Mexico. It was a very relaxing trip which was exactly what Ashley needed with all of the stress she still had in her life (just because we got married early didn’t mean that grad school or her job waited on anything). We went kayaking in Jamaica and played with sea lions in Cozumel. Unfortunately we had to skip Grand Cayman because of bad weather on sea. No one even got to get off of the boat. We didn’t mind staying in and reading though. There is always plenty of things to do onboard a cruise ship. 

We also got to have a big wedding reception in Nashville shortly after Christmas. A huge thanks to my mom for putting all of it together. We went to the barn of some family friends and it was super decorated. About 200 of my closest friends and family came out and celebrated with us. We had a blast. I like to think that everyone else did too. Hopefully I can show some pictures of that at some point. I’m currently on the drive back from Nashville back home. We love going home even if the drive is miserable. Audrey and Addison love their Gigi and Big Daddy. I’ll get right back to work and Ashley will start in-service on Monday. The girls will start back at school midway through next week. 

So that’s sort of the catchup in a nutshell. There are more details to most of what I wrote but I guess I just don’t have the patience to write so much. Plus there are several more things I have learned that I want to share. Feels good to write again though.