To my Husband on Fathers Day

I knew in your heart that you wanted to be a father. Your armored exterior was merely a facade of protection from the world, not letting them know that you are a sensitive, loving man.

From the time we went to our friends back yard barbecue and we fell in love with that little girl who radiated to us. We were so fresh as a couple that kids were just a far off fantasy. She clung to me like I was her mom and she fooled with you as she would her own father. Her grandmother told us that her parents looked just like us and that her name was “Sara.”

That day forward we knew what we would name our daughter……if we ever got to the point of marriage. For which we did.

We walked down the aisle on October 1st, 2000 (you barely making the ceremony thanks to my over anxious, highly intoxicated family starting the show without you). Our first born was a son in 2003, Grant Thomas. Grant for the simple fact he was a gift after our heartbreak and struggle, he shares the same initial as your Grandfather as a token of remembrance and Thomas after your father.

When we thought our family was completed YOU were the one who roped in my heart for another child, for Big G and for us. We got a two for one special and you were radiating while all I was doing was radiating heat and hormones during the incubation! We welcomed a day after Valentines Day in 2008, Seth Michael, Seth because you liked the name and very fitting of the appointed second son, Michael for both our uncles, and Sara, our princess, our sole girl, our finale, Noel after her mother as the first born daughter.
We were complete in every sense of the word.

I love the moments where you struggle to be the father your children deserve, the father you want to be, the father you feel you did not have in your own dad. I love the moments where you sit among them and they crawl on you like the solid oak tree in a summer field. I cherish the moments where you stop and just look at all we have accomplished, how special, beautiful and wonderful our children are because of our love and your foundation as a father. You are a wonderful Dad. You are patient, kind, stern, and a push over, you love without beginning or end, definition or purpose, bumps and bruises are mended with kisses and tickles, frights are cared for with hugs and snuggles, and each one of those little people saw you first upon their arrival into this world and for that I could not be more blessed.

I love you my husband, the father of my children, best friend, worst and best enemy, my debate partner, my comic, my lover, my soul mate, my eternal love.

Happy Father’s Day.