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Thirty-six years ago, an immature, twenty-year-old, bushy-haired, long side burned, guitar playing, hippie-like, preacher boy with an uncertain future, but a cool ’66 Mustang married a far more stable and mature eighteen-year-old girl with beautiful straight, long black hair and gorgeous big brown eyes, one week out of high school. From the start they both knew this relationship was meant to last. They began to date in September. He proposed in November and  they were married in June.

They struggled their way through school, first her, then him. She became a nurse. He became pastor. As a friend of old remarked, one for the body and one for the soul. They lived in some not great rentals in those early years and then moved around to pastor three different churches in two states. She covered the nursing gambit… OB, ER, utilization review, Director of Nursing at a large nursing home, Office Manager for a clinic, and Global Medical Information Specialist for a pharmaceutical company. She did all of that, along with being the “pastor’s wife” and being the “nurse-in-residence” for family members and congregants while raising two children.

Those children came, one four years into the marriage and the other, eighteen months later. The little girl was very smart and had her mom’s eyes and her dad’s personality. The little boy loved to play and took after his mom in personality, but possessed his dad’s mischievousness. She became a teacher. He became an electrician. They each married people that fit right into that crazy family and they complimented the clan with three lovely grandchildren.

This woman is remarkable, unlike any I have known.

• faithful and supportive through the hardest of times
• quiet and never demanding
• the family anchor
• dearly loved at each of her places of employment
• a famously remarkable cook and hostess
• an amazing lover
• with a big heart for all animals, especially the doggies
• seriously knowledgeable of many things, especially, the culinary arts

Somehow she has, somehow, put up with me for these thirty-six years.

Happy anniversary, Patty!

Originally posted June 7, 2010.