(6-28-16) If you are one of the 71,000 readers who follow my author’s page and Facebook posts, you know that my main focus is on mental health reform, with an occasional blog (let’s be honest – sales pitch) about my newest book.
But today, I am posting a personal message: Happy Birthday to Patti, my wife and best friend.
We will celebrate our 18th anniversary later this year. I met her after her first husband, Steve, died much too young from cancer. My first marriage ended in divorce. Her loss of Steve and my divorce made both of us more appreciative of each other when we met and (I’m not kidding) fell instantly for each other. We realized how precious love is — and our’s has been a fairy tale (or Hallmark) romance ever since.
In the toughest times, she has been my best advocate and adviser — when my son was at his sickest, during my mother’s fatal cancer, and my father’s dementia. I still marvel at how gracefully she dealt with both of her younger sisters’ (her closest friends) deaths from lung cancer. I am not being maudlin. A pal once told me, “No one gets through life without getting a little beaten up.” All of us have hardships and it is during those times of personal tragedies that a person’s inner self emerges and true character reveals itself. Patti’s character is loving, kind, loyal, giving and tempered like steel.
There have been thousands of more good times than tough ones. Patti has wisely mothered a blended family of seven. (That’s a lot of birthday parties) Each year, she looks forward to vacations in Nags Head with our children – a yearly tradition. For her, being together with her children is what is best in life. Talk about thoughtful, when I decided to buy a 1967 Austin Healey Mark III 3000 English Sports Car, (during perhaps my third or fourth mid-life crisis) she urged me to add it to my growing car menagerie while she still drives a 2004 Honda mini-van with 170,000 miles and many dents.
So allow me to take a moment to tell you how blessed I am to be married to Patti, how much she has changed my life for the better, and how happy I am that she was born (no, I won’t say when, only that she is younger than me!)
Happy birthday and thank you for being you.
(And sorry about those dents in your van that I made.)
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