My gal's birthday

Today, my wife of 15 years and my dearest friend for nearly 21 years turns the odometer on yet another year. The photo above is from the finish of last summer's Virginia Beach 1/2 marathon. That's my gal.

It's hard to write anything meaningful about birthdays. They come and go. After you reach a certain age, they cease to mean much. Making this task even harder, the month of April has many small anniversaries for she and I, so to blow an entire entry on her birthday would seem ridiculous.

So, I'll keep this short.

She's one of the best people I've ever met. Intelligent, courageous, loving, and generous. She's always believed in me, especially when even I didn't. Stuck with me through lean times and fat times; high times and low times; seen me at my best and my absolute worst - and stuck by me anyway. She provides a life for me and my family that allows me to stay home and raise some pretty smart, and cute, kids.

In all of this is nothing spectacular. Banal, really. People do such things every day in every town across our great country and the larger world. Loyalty. Courage. Work. Family. Friendship. Love. These things are unremarkable, no?

And yet, it's everything . Thank you, gal-o-mine- for being a true friend. A wife. A partner. Everything. You have helped me to become a better man. No, it hasn't been easy.

Maybe I'll tap out that novel she believes I've got in me; or - in her words "if not, so what?"

Happy birthday, Carol