i celebrate your day

To my husband, my best friend:

Now you are another year older, yet I still see the man I first fell in love with all those many years ago. I know you are not one to loudly celebrate these things, choosing to be quiet and introspective about birthdays instead. That's the engineer, contained, sensitive side of you.

I know about the wild, elemental side of you few people ever see.

I love and celebrate the many facets that make you who you are. The little boy inside who still loves to "whoo" out across a rocky outcrop in wait of an echo or response. The young man inside who takes great joy in skinny dipping in a lake or stream. The man who loves watching romantic movies with me. The man who can wield a chef's knife and herbs like nobody's business in the kitchen to come up with the most amazing dishes. The papa who read "The Ransom of Red Chief" by O. Henry to our yet-unborn daughter, and who sang our daughter songs on bike rides in the deep cold winter months of Colorado.

I celebrate your birth.