June 6 – “Happy Anniversary, Chris”

There you go.  First thing I typed today had to be an acknowledgment of the 43 years that my lovely wife has put up with me.  Well, that’s 43 that we have been married.  Our courtship lasted about three years, as I recall, making it almost a half-century that she has been standing by my side, watching my antics, and slowly shaking her head from side to side and disavowing any knowledge of my actions.  Together we have lived through my exile years off the Island.  Southwest Houston.  Northwest Houston.  Fort Worth.  Back to inner-city Houston.  Back to Fort Worth.  Over to Mansfield.  Way up there to Denver.  And finally back to Galveston.  At some of those places I actually had a job.  She usually did.  She was an amazing nurse, by the way.  Still is.  Much of the time I was in school, and she was the breadwinner.  Good one, too.  She also became the mother of our three boys, and lived through the resulting years of me coaching and them playing soccer or basketball or a brief stint with baseball.  She started homeschooling them, and obviously did a great job.  We have fabulous kids.  And speaking of kids, we have some pretty great grandkids now.  Ten of them in fact.  And one of their favorite people in the world?  Good ol’ Nana/Nani.  She gets called both names, but responds to just about anything they say.  She has walked with me through surgeries and arthritis and all forms of stupidity-based injuries and illnesses (my specialty).  And she has traveled with me, taking my creative shortcuts with little to moderate “discussion.”

I am led to believe that the woman either feels completely stuck in this hopeless situation or she actually loves me.  I’m going with the latter.  Fits way better with the absolute infatuation with her that I live each day under the influence of. 

Pssst.  I love you, Chris.  How about lets’ sticking together another 40 or so?

Psalms 68:4 says, “Sing to God, sing praise to his name, extol him who rides on the clouds — his name is the Lord — and rejoice before him.”

Father, thank you again and again for the precious lady you placed in my life those 40+ years ago.  Couldn’t have done it without the two of you.  Amen.