My Miracle Drug

“With her attitude and aversion to cooking, I give them six months.”

I have girlfriends who look through old photos and wonder about their first love. Voices grow soft reminiscing about moonlit walks, romantic poems, and naked promises made while Bon Jovi played in the background. They wonder about him and if he ever made it to graduate school. How is he doing? Is he happy? Does he still have all his hair?

Then they Google the unemployed Enron executive and years of fantasies go down the drain.

I don’t wonder any of these things. If I have a question for my first love, I look across the dinner table and ask him.

Anyone who has ever met my husband probably wonders how I got so lucky. He’s not only the smartest man in any room; he’s wise enough to keep it to himself sometimes. My man is kind, considerate, and funny to a fault. His eyes belong to someone who has never hurt another soul – and never would. He’s also a terrific father.

I said these words during my wedding on October 7, 1995. I still mean every word.

At sixteen or seventeen, my friends and I used to sit around and talk about the men we hoped to meet, fall in love with, and marry. Every time I finished describing my perfect man, my friends would laugh, shake their heads, and say,

“Quit dreaming. A man like that no longer exists.”

I wouldn’t listen. And then, just a few short years later, my sister introduced me to you. There, in flesh and blood, was the man of my dreams.

What did I wish for and end up getting? The words to describe you, and all that you are, aren’t good enough. There isn’t a word yet invented that can accurately convey the feelings that are precious to me and hold a sacred place in my heart. To use words or phrases available would belittle what I feel. Not to mention the fact that I’d be here for days naming them all.

After seven years, you still awaken something new inside me every day. It’s beautiful that you and I feel it, talk about it, and bask in it constantly. What makes it a complete miracle is that our love touches those who are closest to us as well.

I read something once by Emily Bronte and it’s perfect: “…you are more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, yours and mine are the same….If all else perished and you remained, I should still continue to be. If all else remained and you were annihilated, the universe would turn to a might stranger…you are always in my mind; not just as a pleasure to myself, but as my own being.”

Thank you for bringing so much happiness and love into my life. If I can give you a quarter of the joy you’ve given me – that would be a grand accomplishment. I promise to spend every day trying.

I look forward to giving you all that I am until I am no more.

Ups, downs, college, passing fads, crazy crushes and crying kids have done nothing to lessen my feelings for this hunk of a man I am married to. From Tampa to Boston and back again. We made it through bad hair years, stretch marks, and bridges to Nantucket.

Here’s to me and you. Happy Anniversary.