When I call back into my memory the gifts I have received from God, first I thank Him for the gift of myself - and the parents who so generously made me. Then I thank God for the gift of my husband.
Because he IS a gift. Even when we're shopping. I say this because I have a friend who tells me "I don't LIKE my husband when we're shopping." I do like mine, because he likes being with me so he'll shop with me, even if he occasionally stops, looks around, and asks me where I am because I've dawdled behind to look at something I'm not even shopping for. Imagine that! And I remind him "Men are hunters; women are gatherers. Women have to LOOK!"
But he also looks while we're shopping and finds marvelous bargains. He found me the perfect pair of sneakers when I was too tired to keep looking. And he's shown me dresses that I wouldn't have chosen to try on - and they too have been perfect. In other words, often he knows me better than I know myself. And he loves me enough to dress me in love.
We were brought together by a mutual love for acting and reading. Over a dinner out, our conversation is liberally sprinkled with references to movies we've seen, books we've read, t.v. shows we've watched. We'll discuss his various favorite characters, who reveal really the kind of man he is. Jimmy Stewart in "It's A Wonderful Life" ("He's the heroic Everyman," he says), Star Trek's Captains Kirk and Picard ("Star Trek was always about current moral issues, clothed in fantasy," he says), the original Lone Ranger or Batman ("Don't give me these 'dark' complicated anti-hero re-makes!" he says), to N.C.I. S' heroic and laconic Gibbs, to the inimitable Sherlock, ("What a brilliant mind!" he says), and his all time favorite Hawkeye from "MASH." (That show - those people - have heart!" he says.)
So there's my husband: a quietly heroic Jimmy Stewart Everyman. A Captain and a philosophical teacher, like Picard, Straightforward, no-nonsense, transparent, not a self-involved, tormented bone in his body, like those original Marvel heroes. Like Gibbs, few words wasted when he needs to get a job done. Brilliant mind, like Sherlock. Soft heart, like those wisecracking MASH Doctors.
He's given me five beautiful children. And stood by my side so we've raised them together. He's a man of prayer, morning, evening, and night, and his fierce discipline alternately annoys and inspires me.
He's a Permanent Deacon,an ordained clergyman in the Catholic Church, a ministry he's balanced with being dedicated to the city and city ministry, in the Buffalo Public School System, as teacher and Assistant Principal. From there, he pulled me into being Co-Pastoral Administrator at a city parish, St. Lawrence, a demanding and enriching ministry through which we've acquired life-long friendships with our parishioners.
He's stood by my side and laughed with me as we held our children for Baptism and cried with me as we held one's ashes for burial.
Today, May 14, is the thirty-sixth anniversary of his Ordination to the Permanent Diaconate. Happy, happy Anniversary to my beautiful, sweet, tender, dramatic (always!), honest, Best Safe and Happy Place a woman could have - my precious husband Paul. God bless you, darling!