Belated Birthday Blessings

Last Monday was Don's birthday.  I wanted to write a Post honoring him, but life got in the way.  Then, yesterday, when I sat down to write, I read the beautiful tribute to her mother-in-law that my friend, Kelly, wrote.  Pretty hard to compete with that.  And eloquent words just don't flow when I think of Don.  I decided to take another stab at it today and, maybe, just put my thoughts in plain words, without the eloquence and beauty that some of my other friends seem to be able to pen.

When I first met Don, I was immediately attracted to him.  He's a quiet man, but you catch a sense of extreme strength hovering just below the surface.  He has a wonderful, gleaming smile and eyes that twinkle when he's kidding or poking fun at someone.  His gentleness is one of the first things that is apparent about him.  Strength and gentleness - hmm!  No wonder I was attracted to him.

On our very first date, I realized that he's a man that's in control.  He was confortable, confident, and very, very funny.  Don has a fabulous sense of humor, but in a very quiet way.  If you're not watching for it, you'll never experience it.  One of the things I realized early on in our relationship was that, when passion was gone or we were too old to care about those things, Don would keep life fun for me.  His humor and approach to life would linger until death.  I love being with him.  He makes everyday chores seem like family time at the park.  He'll walk by me in the kitchen while I'm doing dishes and deadpan about some crazy thing he just saw outside.  He clips articles from magazines and newspapers and leaves them at our places at the table - last week, there was an article in an SRS Newsletter about an alligator they call "Mr. Stumpy".  He and his mate have parented approximately 500 young and Don included a picture of Stumpy with one of his hatchlings riding on his back.  What makes the story funny is that Deanna's terrified of alligators and Don's determined to break her of her fear.  For her 13th birthday, when we honored her at an Assembly at school, Don brought (unbeknownst to me - it was HIS thing with his daughter, not mine) a stuffed alligator with a chicken inside it.  He explained that alligators were nothing to be afraid of - they were just chickens wearing alligator suits.  He's bought Deanna alligator pencil holders and worked very hard at assuaging her fear through humor.

Which brings me to the next point; Don LOVES his children.  I'm not sure I've ever seen a man so in love with his family.  He buys Christmas presents for each of the children just from him.  He thinks about it for months and comes up with the perfect idea, then goes out alone to buy the presents, wraps them himself, and refuses to even tell me what he bought them.  Time after time, it turns out to be the perfect gift, but it's always something that has to do with HIS relationship with them.  I buy the presents from "us", he buys the presents from Daddy.  Several years ago, he started giving them an end-of-school gift, also.  This shocked me.  To me, the end of school was gift enough.  But Don is so proud of the effort his children put into school and the grades they make that he felt they needed a reward at the end of the school year, so he always buys them something special to begin the summer.

Many years ago, when the children were young, I noticed that Don would come out to the van as we were leaving for trips with things tucked behind his back.  It didn't take me long to discover that he always picks up something special for the children before road trips or vacations.  If it'll be a long drive, he buys them a new movie.  If we're going to the beach and he thinks there will be downtime or bad weather, he brings some Lego project for them to complete together.  He always buys them new beach toys - every year.  There's always something special hidden away for them when they get bored.  None of these things are usually expensive.  Don shops the clearance aisles and stashes away things when he can get them for a song.  It's not the money he spends, it's the thought he puts into each gift.

He's always been a tremendous help to the children with school work.  He leaves anything to me that he feels requires "artistic ability" (which I find laughable, because the artistic genes definitely come from HIS side of the family), but math, science, even helping edit writing projects are all things he's willing to take on.  Since starting high school, he's spent hours with Deanna, helping her with physics, computer skills, explaining the concepts in Algebra and, more importantly, teaching her how to use the laptop more effectively.  The evening of the first day of school, I found him sprawled on Deanna's bed working side-by-side with her on her homework.

Don has never felt threatened by me.  I'm a very strong, opinionated woman, but he's way stronger.  My family laughs often because, as they say, Don lets me think I'm in charge and make decisions when he doesn't really care about them, but just when I think he's not paying attention and I get a little heavy-handed, out pops the "in-control" Don to set me straight and bring proper order back into our family life.  He rules the roost with an iron hand, albeit an invisible one.  My father told me years ago that he didn't think Don ever told me "no".  I laughed.  Don tells me no all the time.  But I learned two years into our marriage that there is no changing his mind, so I don't talk about the things to which he says no.  I tried manipulating, getting angry, the silent treatment, and every other device known to woman.  Nothing worked.  When Don says no, the answer is no - period.  He's impervious to my feminine wiles.

On the other hand, Don has incredible wisdom.  I love talking to him.  He always sees things from a very different perspective than mine.  When I have a problem or can't quite think through something, I'm quick to run to Don.  He usually has the perfect solution and, normally, it's something that would never have crossed my mind.  And he's able to mention these things in such a gentle, kind way that I never feel ordered around.  He just speaks wisdom and I hear it for what it is.

Once, when we were going through a particularly difficult time with one of our children, Don suggested me taking the children to his parents' for 3 months.  He told me I could homeschool them there, but that would get the child out of the difficult situation and give them a little break.  I scoffed.  "I can't move in with your parents!!  Have you even asked them?  They couldn't handle us being there for 3 months.  Besides, the children couldn't miss 3 months of school!"  I dismissed his suggestion without a second thought.  A week later, we got the offer to go to England - for 3 months.  We took the kids out of school and I homeschooled them there.  The child got the needed break and God worked around my shortsightedness and my dismissal of my husband's idea.  Now, of course, I can see that God probably wanted us in West Virginia and was speaking through my husband but, because of my stubbornness, he had to work another way that was more palatable to me.  After our return from England, while visiting my in-laws, I told Mom about this.  She was quick to tell me that I should have come there; that those are her grandchildren and she'd make do.

"Anytime you need to get away, Honey, you come here.  Three months would have been fine with me."

Does this man that I love and respect so much have faults?  Yes, of course, just like all humans.  But he's so-o-o-o-o-o perfect for me, so truly God's choice for me.  When we announced our engagement, some friends that knew us both well expressed surprise.

"You two have absolutely NOTHING in common," they said.  That's true.  Don loves the mountains, I love the beach.  He loves Mexican, I love Italian.  He's quiet and doesn't like groups.  I'm energized by social contact and come alive entertaining large groups.  He likes bland foods, I like flavorful.  He likes simple, I like complicated.  He's dark, I'm fair.  The list of differences goes on and on.  Truly, the only things we had in common were our love of God, our senses of humor, and our love and respect for each other.  But that was enough.  We've made a wonderful life together, mostly because of him.

My friend, Jim Guinan, is fond of jokingly saying about his wife, "She's the gorilla of my dreams!"  Along those same lines, Don may not be perfect, or anything like me, but he's the Manta 'o MY dreams.

Happy Belated Birthday, my love.  I'm looking forward to many more.