It was an ordinary day, a Tuesday. I was working. Jason was working. And it was also the day marking our second year of marriage. Normally, I make much of these occasions. I plot out gift purchases months in advance. I craft brilliant poems, homemade cards and sweet vignettes. I buy new outfits, cook the perfect dinner, bring out the good China.

But this year, this sacred occasion slipped up on me somehow. Not that I could ever forget April 8. It’s engraved on my wedding band and on my heart. It’s my most unforgettable day, when I joined forever my every molecule of breath & spirit with my soul’s mate. It’s just that so many pressing matters, really urgent and important things, have filled up my moments (and his moments, too), and I didn’t have time for my typical above-and-beyond-ness.

And I felt guilty. Ashamed. Like I had failed at all the unwritten rules of wife-dom. (At least the rules I’d conjured up.) I felt guilty for not making much.

But then, not long after Jason surprised me with a dozen roses at the office where I spent the afternoon working, I realized that we, Jason and I, make much everyday. We give flowers – verbal flowers, emotional flowers, hug-and-kiss flowers – to each other on quiet Mondays, rainy Saturdays, and weary Wednesdays. Not just one-day-a-year flowers. We surprise each other with the gifts of presence, laughter, singing, kindness, dancing, listening, hoping, believing, dreaming, loving. And we give these gifts consistently, passionately, selflessly.

Of course, we’ll keep marking April 8, our favorite day. But even if life catches up with us and we’re pulling a last minute Hallmark stop on the way to dinner at Zola’s, it’s okay. Because there are plenty of other days when a love note gets tucked in a pocket, when a favorite chocolate bar ends up in a backpack, when a deep soul cavern is excavated and understood. Plenty of days when some flower is left on a windshield and, with it, a card with a word only the two of us know.