Anna Kate Donovan

8.2.59

A long time ago…on August 2, 1959 to be exact…something amazing happened. In a tiny, one traffic light town in North Carolina, a city girl pledged her troth to a country boy. Helen Graham and Felix Yarboro got married. And the story of me began…

37 years later I stood at the altar with my soul mate and did the same thing.

4 years after that, Robert and I welcomed the first of our three lovely daughters into the world.

So August 2nd is something of a phenomenon in our family.

As a young Southern girl, I thought about my wedding dress and all of those things that little girls daydream about but, as I got older, those thoughts gave way to opinions on friends, school, music and all of the randomness that fills a teenage mind. I was dating someone who talked of spending our lives together but deep down I knew that my heart wasn’t in it. (My parents should now be smiling since they were right all along!) Enter Robert Donovan. Within a few weeks, I knew. He was the man for me. I found out later that he knew too. Strange how that happens, isn’t it?

Shortly thereafter, the marriage word came into play and at some point, the calendar was consulted. There it was. Plain as day. August 2nd fell on a Saturday. I still remember the tingling feeling in my stomach. We could share the day with my parents. There was no question. So, on 8.2.97, I put on my mother’s wedding dress and became Mrs. Donovan.

Four years later, largely pregnant with our first child, my OB said, “What about next Thursday?” I was completely calm until I realized the date of next Thursday. August 2nd. More stomach tingling. Abigail arrived perfectly according to my OB’s plan, making us parents and forever catapulting the date into the Yarboro/Donovan Hall of Fame.

It is not just that we share the date with my parents and the birth of our first child. It is so much more than that. My parents have been a great example of what a marriage should look like, from both the outside and inside. Their relationship is not without fault or flaw but its about as close to perfect as it can be. My husband and I have an amazing relationship. I am grateful each and every day for that. Our daughter is an incredible person. She is a lot of me and even more of my husband intertwined into a young girl who is smart, beautiful, kind and capable of anything.

So, on this, the second day of August 2013, I wish my parents a happy 54th, my sweet husband a happy 16th and our darling daughter a happy 12th.

Happy happy happy!

« »