It’s hard to remember a time when I didn’t know you.  A time where I never looked at you and smiled either with my face or with my soul.

Even when we first met, the first thing I noticed about you was your gentleness.  Even in the way you listened, the way you hung your head and didn’t look at me.  Without knowing you at that time, I still knew you were listening to me deeply.  It said a lot about you to listen to someone you barely knew with such sincerity.

The years we spent at Xavier were years of their own.  Those days when we laughed so hard that life seemed to be perfect just as it was.  Perfection was a day we took a walk around Eden Park and talked about our hopes and dreams.  I don’t think either of us ever really thought that our hopes and dreams would eventually merge into one path.

Those years of inner struggle, when neither of us knew what we wanted to do with our lives are now times we can look back with admiration instead of pain.  I think we’ve reached that point in our lives where we can be proud you were in seminary, discerning your vocation, and I can be proud of the places I went, the work I did, the people I tried to learn more about.  Both of us, without really knowing, were really looking for ourselves.  And I’m proud that we both had the strength to step away from each other and live out our questions before we realized that our answers were laying in one another.

You flew to Boston every month for nearly a year and then moved there when you sensed I was growing tiresome of a long distance relationship.  You hate fashion and worked at the Gap.  You had your masters in theology and applied to work as English speaking tutor to kids from Japan and Spain.  You took other people’s shifts to help out even if it meant spending 4th of July a part.  You helped me move and always took the big boxes.  When we talked on the phone, you hid your frustration when I called from a loud bar and screamed, “HOW’S EVERYTHING GOING FOR YOU?”  When we sat at Summit Park, overlooking Boston, we talked seriously for the first time about getting married and spending our lives together, but it kept being interrupted by the bean burrito gas episodes …  we couldn’t stop laughing at the ridiculousness of constant farting through the most profound conversation of our lives.

You never wanted anything but for me to be happy.  You never want anything now but for me and Isaiah to be happy.

I watch you now, stealing glimpses when you’re not looking, perpetually amazed at how pure your heart is, how good you are to so many people, and how unassuming you of every living person.  You give everyone – from Obama to your family to rude teens to bad drivers to homeless people on the street – the same treatment: you assume the best in all of them, in all of us.

You may not be perfect, but you’re close to it in my eyes.  Our life together often resembles the best case scenario of how love should go and I am moved beyond words each day I see you working so hard to create a life of goodness, creativity, and meaning for us.  There is no better man in my life, no better person.

Six years of marriage is nothing compared to the lifetime of love we have already exchanged.  And I am so excited to see what more we build together, what Isaiah will bring, how and what we’ll all learn from one another.  You have made me a better person, a better woman.  Your insights have made me pause, your quips make me chuckle, and your honesty has moved me to a higher place of understanding.

We will always grow together, my love, and the stem that flowers us both is stronger than ever.

Lisa