In Honor of this most momentous birthday, I'll be posting lots of embarrassing pictures of him to my blog for lots of strangers to look at and giggle at in helpless amusement.
I met him when I was 15. We were in high school and I was the new girl. He greeted me with a hug that was essentially a means to feel me up. I greeted him with a full on face slap. How's that for the beginnings of a relationship?
So that you can all understand how truly dorky and weird we were in high school, here is a picture of us at prom during what I believe to be my sophomore (his Junior) year. Soooooo subversive. Ok, not really, but keep in mind that we often occupied our time speeding through the streets of Salt Lake City in his beat up Nissan listening to the Violent Femmes at levels of volume normally only found when a jet engine is working extra hard to keep a plane from spiraling out of a clear blue sky.
Then, we had this. See that little lump of a potato in his arms? That is our daughter. No, the girl does not look amused. I have never seen a man so completely smitten though, as he is with her.
This would be a picture at our first wedding. (Yes, I did say first, be patient, all will be explained.) One of our favorite pasttimes with each other has been finding ways to drive each other crazy. This particular photo shows him under the bad influence of his dear friend and ersatz mother, Shannon and about to smash cake in my face. (Now that I have found fiber, I have learned that I absolutely must forgive her as she spins.) The cake went up my nose. There were tears shed and an embarrassing tiff right there in front of both of our families. Shannon made up for it by providing us with amazing honeymoon accomplishment in her fairy tale backyard on a pile of creamy sheepskins. If you were to put either of us under a polygraph test today, we would both pass when we explained we saw what must surely have been sprites or fairies alighting and twinkling in that tree.
After a while, in an all too common for our age group realization that we just were not making it, We split up. I was pregnant with our son, and after much drama and tragedy, we each took a child and parted ways to raise them.
Since that day he has worked every day as hard as he can to make a wonderful life for our daughter. He raised her to be a stong, intelligent and capable, if flighty and occasionally annoying, young woman. His fathering is nothing short of a miracle.
Almost 2 years ago, I received a phone call. The girl was out to visit me for the summer when he called and asked if I would like to keep her for a while longer, and he would be out for christmas. That Christmas, after much discomfort and reassessment of boundaries (and a little liquor to bring down self-defense mechanisms) we found ourselves to still be as in love as that dorky couple on their way to Prom.
Our family has been put back together. He has worked his fingers to the bone and made sacrifices that most of us cannot even imagine in order to do this. He is supportive, kind and will lauigh at his own foibles, and make me laugh when pointing out mine to me. He stood by me and worried more when I had to go into the hospital than I did. He forever tells me how beautiful I am, and I always fail when trying to describe how beautiful I find him as well. He is an artist, a poet, a photographer, a lover of hand-knitted goods, a willing fiber fondler, an awesome cook, our breadwinner, and truly a force in the lives of all the people he associates with.
Thank you for all you have done, all you will do, and thank you for the beautiful children, the slightly exploded home, the hard work, and (I know it's cliche) all of the laughter and tears.
I love you with all of my heart. Happy Birthday.
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