Christal and I have been married for 20 years?!  Crazy to think about it and the time has flown by so fast. Several moves, several houses, two kids and a whole bunch of friends scattered across the world.  It’s like a badge of honor to be able to hit a benchmark that not everyone or every relationship has been able to accomplish.  The secret?  I’ll let you know when I figure it out.  Hit me up in another 30 years and should have a better idea.  However, I will give you these two pieces of advice that have helped us along the way.  I have given this advice to a few people over the years and I am assuming it has helped?

1. When you say “I do”, they don’t gift you a handbook on how to create a perfect marriage.   What worked (or didn’t work) for your parents will not apply to your marriage.  Don’t shove other marriages or success stories into yours.  You are not them and they are not you.  You are unique.
2. Marriage is NOT 50/50.  Anyone who says that is just repeating something that sounded smart and just.  Not one married person is feeling like they are pulling 50% of the weight in the relationship.  AND if you are pulling more of your share of that weight (51% +) there’s not a lot of reasons you should ever bring that up or keep score because of it; unless you have reached a breaking point.  If you are reaching a breaking point, then communication in your relationship may be an issue.  Go see a professional.   

While we were in Ireland, Christal and I went to a Jamie Cullum concert (another thing she set up for us!) and afterwards we went backstage to meet him.  Jamie found out from his “people” that we were celebrating our 20^th anniversary and was excited to meet the traveling Americans.  Usually, when it comes to artists, I am the ones asking questions.  During this very informal setting, Jamie asked us “What’s your secret to being married…because this is not easy”.  My response was simply “Man, at this point, I’m just trying to outlive her”.  I didn’t feel it was the right moment to sit him down and share my “sage” knowledge on the subject.  Maybe that’s a topic over a pint of beer and not during a meet and greet?  I would love the opportunity to have a drink with him since he is one of my favorite artists of all time. 

This chapter is not about marriage, but it (marriage) does play a role in the story I am sharing.  We can talk about marriage in 30 years…. unless my wife kills me before that happens.  (Please call the cops if you hear a story of me falling off a cruise ship and disappearing).

So I jumped the gun there for a minute, in case you didn’t pick all that up, my wife Christal booked us a 20^th anniversary trip to Ireland!  It was a dream trip and a place I have wanted to visit my entire life.  A big anniversary number deserves an epic adventure or something grand.  This is not the part of the story where I trick you into looking at all my vacation pictures or hearing stories about places you may never visit or have any interest in visiting.  Nothing is more painful than watching a slide show of someone else’s trip and having them describe the breakfast buffet at the hotel, but if you must know, the Irish are not known for their amazing cuisine and we will leave it at that.  This is riveting content! 

If you know me, I do my best to honor those who have made an impact in my life.  I am an expert in writing funeral speeches or putting together brief post on Facebook about people who are no longer with us.  Sadly, I have done it way too frequently over the past couple of years. If I knew them well enough to write a post about them, then I am going to share a story.  It’s not for attention or sympathy, it’s simply to keep their memory alive.  Stories are important to those left behind.  Especially the ones we’ve never heard before. 

I have lost two brothers in my life.  I have written about Jimmy and Michael often and I do this to remember, but also to honor them.  So many stories have fallen upon my shoulders to keep alive and I try to keep them as close as I can to the truth and not some revisionist history.  As the years go by, it’s harder to stay closer to the original stories and the memories are dulled by the fog of getting older. 

If you saw or read my first book Pull the Trigger, you might notice a graphic of two pennies on the cover.  It’s not about me giving my “two cents” to the world (although a good guess), there’s actually a bigger and deeper reason for the visual.  Very few people, outside of my family, know the importance of the two pennies.  When Jimmy was about 5-6 years old, he created a pretend restaurant called “Americas” and all they served was steak and Kool-Aid.  These were Jimmy’s favorite foods and when asked how much it would cost people to order the “steak and Kool-Aid special”, he would respond with “Two pennies”.  To him, and any kid that grew up in that generation, two pennies was a substantial amount of money.  If you had a piggy bank with more than two pennies, you were a rich kid and it made a lot of noise when you shook it. Two pennies became a family joke that later became something so much more after he passed away just a few years later. 

Since his death, anytime anyone of us went to see “Jimmy” at the gravesite, we would bring two pennies and lay them somewhere on the headstone.  Over the years, others have left money and other random items, but until now, I have never written about the importance and the story of the pennies. Like a wishing well, people just assumed this this is what you did with your loose change when visiting the Murphy boys.  After Michael’s passing, those two pennies now represent my two brothers that have gone to heaven before me.  If you look at the cover of Pull the Trigger, you will see that the minted years matched the years my brothers were born. 

So, what do you do when your amazing wife provides you an opportunity to visit the birthplace of your family name on your 20^th wedding anniversary?  You make sure to bring a pocketful of pennies to honor your brothers on your trip to Ireland.  And that’s what I did.  My brothers came on this trip with me and experienced it every step of the way. 

You will find two pennies in the River Shannon, two pennies in the dungeon at the base of the Castle Blarney a perfect location for my brothers! Lol), two pennies at the Guinness brewery and two pennies at the Cliffs of Moher.  If you are ever traveling through Ireland, some of those will be easier to find than the others. 

Michael was known for his writing and I wanted to do something extra for him.  I didn’t just bring pennies on this trip. If you ever visit St. Patrick’s Cathedral, I not only put two pennies in the donation box before I lit two candles, but you will also find a poem, written by Michael Murphy, crammed into an area that nobody will likely see.  You will also find a Michael Murphy poem on top of a piece of advertising just outside of the bathrooms on the first floor of the Jameson’s distillery.  I ran out of pennies at that point in the trip, but still had a few poems.  If you ever visit the distillery, let me know if you find the poem.  You can call me a litterbug or the leaver of strange geocache items, but it’s no different than scattering ashes of loved ones…and less worry about the wind throwing them back into your eyes. 

If the cops come looking for me, know that you are now an accomplice to this crime.  If I am dead, see the earlier paragraphs and know that my wife was the one that pushed me off the side of the cruise ship on our eventual 30^th anniversary.  Perhaps you, and her next husband (likely more handsome than me), can throw THREE pennies into the Atlantic Ocean in my honor?

#Tryharder to not miss opportunities to honor those who mean (or meant) a great deal to you.  You’d be surprised by the number of things I do in my day to show appreciation to those who may never see me honor them.  Yet, that’s not the point.  By honoring them, I get to keep them closer to my heart and as a constant reminder of the stories and lessons they have provided me.  I just hope to live long enough to hear and share all the good ones. 

Perhaps I’ll stay away from cruise ships for a while…