Grateful

​With it being close to turkey day, and with it come the time we say why we are grateful. Oddly enough, people should really do this more than once a year, but its tradition. Courtney you have yourself to blame here. 

​I am grateful for the singular reason for all of this. Courtney you are my wife, my partner, my strength, and my true love. I have never felt as much or as often as I do with you. Even though we were tricked into meeting, and despite not wanting to date long distance, you found it within your heart and soul to let me in and love me. I will always be grateful for that. You don’t trust easy. You don’t love easy. And yet, you found it within me. 

​I know I don’t really say it enough. I don’t cover it a lot, and I’m a closed off person. So let me say it now. I love you. My heart beats to your tune, and every breath I take I commit it to you. When my body is broken, energy is gone, and my will has left, your voice keeps me going. 

​What is funny is you don’t even know how much you mean to me. You don’t even know how much power you have over me. You don’t realize that a mere smile can send a quake through my entire world. The aftershocks can drive me for days searching for it again. Then you laugh, and heaven opens to me. My clouds part and the rays of the sun finally find me. I could bask in it for hours. How such a beautiful person could love me is beyond me. I don’t understand it. Perhaps that is where the magic comes from unknown of it all. I hope I never understand it. Every day we are together I learn a little more, but you are then ocean. Plan to spend the rest of my life understanding and admiring you. You are stronger than you know. Your persistence and determination really is like the waves of the sea. Crashing into boulder of my heart softening it. And the storms of your ire are as beautiful as they are terrifying.

Let us not forget the most important point. You went through hell and faced death itself to bring me Graham. You showed more strength and heart in those moments than I’ve ever seen from a human being. I truly believed you were a goddess in that hospital. Bringing forth life and not letting anything hold you back from your child. I will always be in awe of that.

​With Thanksgiving, our anniversary, and Christmas rapidly approaching, there is only one thing I want to give you. I want you to be able to see yourself the way I see you. You don’t see just how amazing, awe inspiring, and incredible you really are. You know me. You know I don’t use words lightly. Especially if I think the conversation is important. I want you to understand. In this moment, there is nothing more important to me. Not therapy, not work, absolutely nothing else in my mind is more important than you in this instance. This moment is for you. You aren’t pretty, you are profoundly beautiful. You are kind. You are strong. And, I love you with every single atom of my body. 

​I am grateful of all you do for Graham. For all you try to do at home. I am grateful for when you just call for no other reason than just to check up on me. So take a moment and allow yourself to feel in this moment. I bet you’ve rolled your eyes twice by now, but seriously take a breath and let it go for a beat. Feel my love and appreciation. Because I can’t always get the words out when we talk. If there is one thing I’ve learned about you is you don’t always understand what I am saying. I know it’s my fault. When I talk out loud, I can usually say things that can have five different meaning and mean all five of them. Thank you for putting up with that. So here I’ve laid out the question that goes through your mind when I look at you. You catch me, and ask “What?” I say “nothing”. You are confused and I just smile. What I’m thinking in those moments is this right here. I am grateful for you. I love you. And I would not rather be with anyone else. 

Thank you.

Love,

Shane.