Honoring an Amazing Wife

Seven years ago, in my dad's words, I was dip donging around, without a single care, happily resigned to a life of perpetual bachelorhood. I had just been in three weddings in four weeks, all over the state. The three weddings constituted three different groups of friends, so the question was asked often: "When are you settling down and getting married?" That may not have always been the exact wording, but that was the gist of the question each of 856 times I was asked the question. My answer was a simple never. It wasn't meant to be rude, neither toward the interrogator nor marriage in general. At the time, I just could not envision someone who I felt could convince me to spend forever with them, and I certainly couldn't envision anyone caring to spend forever with me. In short, I just didn't ever see marriage as a possibility. It wasn't a sad or angry thing for me, I was resigned to being a single man, and that was truly okay with me. I was nearly 25, and while observing my peers settling down all around, I just saw nothing in it for me. Lucky for me, I was wrong. A couple of months later, on my 25th birthday, I met a really cool girl. At first, I thought, "This girl is really cool and fun to hang out with." Within a month, I thought, "I want to marry this girl and spend forever with her." Her amazing qualities shone through immediately, and although I often tell people I made her fall in love with me, I fell in love with her pretty quickly. Come to think of it, maybe I did make her fall in love with me, since I was already so in love with her. Well, fast forward years later, on this, our five year anniversary. Five years ago today we said "forever and ever" in front of 200 or so people, and followed it up with a nice little party. In these last five years, we have been through the textbook of ups and downs. Family funerals, including my dad and her grandmothers, all of whom were deep influences on us, friends' weddings and divorces, financial ups and downs, me going back to school, and of course, our two beautiful children. I could go on for days about my wife's qualities that make her the picture of perfection to me, but I will just say this to her: "Thank you for everything you've given me. I could give you an extravagant gift every day for the rest of our lives, and it would pale in comparison to what you have given me in the form of love, support, cheerleading our children. You are a wonderful wife, mother, teacher and best friend, and that's just the things you do for me and our family. You're the best thing I never even asked for. God just saw fit to make us for one another, and for that I will thank and praise Him for all of my days. I will also thank and praise you always. I love you so much, and let's keep doing this wild ride together, with the hopes that our ups will always be a little higher than the downs. You're my everything, and I am constantly blessed by getting to do forever with you."