I favor the elegiac: feelings to be plumbed, questions to ask, and the inevitable melancholy when both resolve.
This isn’t one of those times.
I experienced the remarkable twenty-three years ago: I married you, the love of my life. So began an enduring adventure.
I remember the first time I told you I love you. We were at your apartment in Saint Paul. My cheek pressed to yours, electricity in my ears, and I whispered into yours, almost conspiratorially, “I love you”. It’s a moment in a vast collection of magical ones.
On the day we married, I remember sitting next to you, leaning in close, and whispering it again. Several times.
I remember saying it when each of the girls was born, and in all the ordinary moments since — each phone call, each bedtime.
Sometimes, I’ll sneak up the stairs during the work day to whisper it again, in case you forgot.
This love is an imperfect, yet unbreakable thread that has knit our lives, our family together.
I am grateful for the life this love has made: for you, for our girls, for the ordinary days that are extraordinary because we have lived them together.
I’ve spent the last twenty-three years loving you a little more intently each day. I’m excited to spend the rest of my life perfecting it.
