Jenelle

On 40 years, 19 of them mine

Dearest Darlin’,

I know you would rather this were a song; something with melody and chords and words sung by my voice. This is not a song, but I hope that it sings. After all, you are the music, and these are simply the words.

Today, you join me in our forties. When we stumbled into each other’s worlds nearly half our lifetime ago, I knew you were pretty—beautiful even. I didn’t know that you were klutzy, forgetful, scatterbrained, and a perennial mess. I learned those things later, and to my own surprise (and maybe yours as well), I learned to love them, because someone who loves the world as much as you do, could never exist in it cleanly.

But that’s getting ahead of things. Your life has been hard and filled with terrible trauma, but I want to look at all the ways it’s been beautiful, and becomes more so every year. All of these things are because of you—like a butterfly, you have outgrown the circumstances that made you, and flourished.

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I’ll never forget our first date. The one where we accidentally held hands for the first time, I complimented your “dress” that was really a shirt, and you shared so much of yourself with me that I knew you were the one by the time we got back to my dad’s Miata.

364 days later, you stepped into the aisle on your father’s arm. I reacted much the same as I am now in recalling this: my heart leapt into my throat, tears sprang to my eyes, and I thought you were the most beautiful girl I’d seen in my life. There was a time when I thought you would never again look quite as beautiful in just the right way, as you did that day. I was wrong.

Six years later, you gave us Clyde. I’d always wanted to name a son after Grandpa, and here he was, lying against your skin. You smiled, I cried, and marvelled at how flawlessly you brought him into the world.

Three years after that, Archie came, faster than ever. You were now a boy mom. Star Wars shirts and acres of LEGOs it would be.

Then came some of the biggest challenges of our adult lives. They nearly broke you—broke us—but we made it to the other side together. A new future, both worse and better, was afforded to us. We took it, determined to make the most of it. And we have. Boy, have we ever.

I believe every marriage hits a breaking point. When they do, some shatter or develop weakening stress fractures, while others bulge outwards, only to snap back into place, right back where they were. We swelled with the pain, and then firmed up without receding, like a muscle worked until building.

Much of this was due to the work you dedicated to learning about yourself and growing from it. You weren’t simply depressed; you had traumatic PTSD and ADHD. These revelations provided new solutions and opportunities to improve. You took these. Watching this transformation has made the last five years the happiest of my life. You have become the person I always knew you were.

On many mornings, as I sit at my writing desk overlooking the back yard, I watch as you walk out to the garage with kids in tow, only to stop and listen to the birds, or admire a dandelion, or congratulate the spider above the door on her newest, dew-dappled drapery. I may roll my eyes every time you stop on a hike because a moss-covered stump looks like a fairy home or a patch of mushrooms popping through last year’s leaves resembles a tiny village, but down deep, I get it now. In San Francisco, as you stopped to collect literal garbage off the streets as tiny keepsakes, I finally understood.

There is magic everywhere, but a Four of Diamonds will remain a mere playing card until it’s swept out of the deck with a magician’s flourish.

You bring so much light and awe into the world, Jenelle. Everyone who walks through our front door walks into your smile and a giant hug, even if you saw them hours prior. There are crystals casting rainbows from every window of our house; a disco ball rotates in our dining room; our bathtub sits amidst a forest pond. You see the potential in every scrap, trinket, or discarded item.

Clyde and Archie know you not just as a mother but as someone who truly loves life and unfearingly delights in anything that catches her fancy. I know that someday they will have partners who learn the same things from them that us Thomas boys have learned from you.

And yet, you are mine—your olive skin, dazzling hazel eyes, long green hair, and dimples in the small of your back. You support me in anything I need, you give me space to know who I am down deep, and you willingly jump into any adventure I come up with.

Truly, I don’t know who I would be without you, but I can be certain I wouldn’t be nearly as secure, satisfied, confident, or content. If this is what 40 years of life looks like on you, I can’t wait for 40 more. I love you more than anything, and suspect I always will.

Here’s to the next adventure, the next unknown, fearlessly together, always.

- Happy 40th Birthday, darlin’