Happy Anniversary to my beautiful and amazing husband Patrick Feren.  We have known each other for 23 years and are celebrating 19 years of marriage today, July 1, 2020. We chose July 1 as our wedding day because of the film “An Affair to Remember.” We identified with that film because of the love that was always destined to be. The song “Our Love Affair,” was what we chose to have sung as I walked down the aisle.

Our love affair has not been without challenge. In fact, as we reminisce our past, we acknowledge that it was a pretty rocky journey in the world of form, but never in the world of Spirit and Love. Perhaps, that’s why we didn’t really claim our life as a hardship. Although we had many trials in the area of money, creativity, and health, we always celebrated our life.

We worked many odd jobs just to get by. We produced theater with a passion, without ever getting much monetary value out of it. We had a few scary physical crises along the way, the first one in our first year of marriage. We experienced September 11, 2021, the first year of our marriage. We lost parents together. We lost dear friends together. We moved our whole life to Los Angeles and then to here, Kaua`i. We started a ministry together and are still together. We learned, together, through all of that to finally realize that we deserve the best because of who and what we are – God.

When I think of our life, I take a deep breath and say, “Wow!” Just yesterday, I was feeling so blessed to be here on Kaua`i during this COVID 19 Pandemic. I was feeling so blessed to be in a beautiful home and to have food to eat. I was feeling blessed to be working in a field I am passionate about. I was just feeling so grateful. Then, I realized something. I saw that things were really no different now than when we were living the “hard” life in our very beginnings. Yes, back then, we noticed we were struggling and we complained, but we never felt like we were suffering, and we were always celebrating life, even when we were shopping at the dollar store, auditioning and not getting cast, had no health insurance, lifted ourselves out of incredible debt, took jobs we disliked in order to survive, and celebrated with the cheapest wine we could find.  Life was an adventure and we felt rich and grateful. We had fun. His mom used to tell us we were crazy and perfect for each other. She was right.

So, today as we celebrate our 19 years, I am so grateful for a man who is not just my husband and lover, but my partner in ministry, in business, my best friend, a man I totally respect and honor as a magnificent human being. His journey before me is an example of a life that rose from the ashes of abuse, violence and despair into life’s living example perfect love.

I know we were made for each other and for this time, and I can’t think of anyone whom I would want to be with right now. If I believed in destiny, I’d say we were destined for each other. I celebrate us, our life, our accomplishments, our perseverance, our ability to continue to grow, our childlike wonder and our love and care for others.

Our life has always been a ministry from the path we took in theater for many years, and now as CSL Kaua`i, a path we’ve co-created with Spirit in the present now moment. I trust our continued evolution and growing love. I am so grateful. I love you Paddykins! Happy Anniversary!

Eternal Love,

Rita