Seanea and I met in the Baltimore Police Academy. During the second week, I had to give up my front row seat and switch with a dozing recruit in the back corner of our class of 50. My new seat was next to the girl I would marry the following year, and who during the first week of the academy, gave a first impression that left me thinking to myself, “avoid her at all costs” as I encountered her at the top of a stairwell stomping and cursing in a mess of papers after dropping her 3 ring binder.

It’s impossible to limit our 24 year love story to just one memory and 500 characters, so… Seeing an Elvis impersonator in Niagara Falls when we were dating, getting tear gassed together in the police academy, and again 20 years later while protesting the police. Her volunteering me to officiate a funeral while at a service. Having to answer to anyone who yells “Babe!” because her term of endearment for me has become so widely known and used, and carrying her around on my shoulders like a kid.

We would take the trip that our love has earned and deserves. We’d really love to vacation in Dubai, but the truth is, I think we’d be just as happy sitting on the deck of a cruise ship together, or sitting next to each other as we drove across the country in an RV. The money would only serve to allow us to give each other our full time and attention. Time together is what we’ve always valued more than anything else. Time for our love, to become timeless.