Dear No One,
Today is my husband’s birthday. Now I know it is easy to say nice, generic things about people on Instagram that make them look perfect.
The truth is that he is not perfect, but he’s pretty darn close to the perfect man for me and my family. It’s impossible to completely capture someone in writing, but here is my attempt.
He is a gentle giant. 6’6 so he really is a giant to most people. But the gentle part is what I want to focus on here.
We went on a cruise a few years ago with my sister, her husband, and some friends. Marcus got hypnotized one night. They told them all that they were eating at a restaurant, their meal got messed up, and they were as mad as they can be. I leaned over to my sister and said, “Marcus doesn’t get mad. I don’t know what he’s going to do.” Sure enough, he kind of pointed down to his plate and shrugged like he was a little disappointed but understood. When hypnotized and all inhibitions are gone, he still couldn’t get mad.
Even with a fairly controlling, anxious, hormonal wife, he never gets too worked up about anything. He’d rather talk it through and move forward.
He is hardworking. He is an OB/GYN, so just getting through medical school and residency was an incredibly long, challenging road. And now he spends every day caring for women with as much or more empathy than he shows me every day at home (which is a lot). He then comes home and helps me with literally every request I have (with no complaints), cleans the house, cooks if I don’t want to, mows the yard, scoops the snow, fixes everything we broke during the day, and continues to check in on patients. He will call a patient on a Sunday because he knows they are sitting around, anxiously waiting for a result. He will work 28 hours in a row and come home and start cleaning or playing with the boys. His work is never done, at his job and at home. He functions on little to no sleep just to spend more time with us. I think it must be that Iowa farm boy in him that makes him so hardworking.
He is also EXTREMELY gifted at multiple things. One, he is very smart. I mean, he’s a doctor. But he also knows the most random facts because he has a thirst for knowledge.
Two, he is very athletic. He played football in college, and he went to state in high school for every sport he played. Anything we play, I tend to just get frustrated because I will never beat him. Except golf. He refuses to play with me because he knows I might actually beat him at one sport. Everything else, I lose.
Three, he is an amazing musician. He will hear a song, sit down at the piano or with his guitar and be playing it within two minutes. He can harmonize any song, play the piano upside down (see video), play full songs on kid toys, and will learn any song I request. (My favorite is when he plays “River Flows In You” on the piano. I walked down the aisle to it at our wedding.) Now we just need to work on his dance moves. I told you, he’s not perfect.
I could probably keep going, but I’m hoping you are getting the picture. He is a big kid at heart, works extremely hard not only for his family but his patients, loves with everything he has, and is extremely handsome (I had to throw that in there somewhere).
It sounds cheesy, (what about this post hasn’t been cheesy??) but he makes me a better person. He empathizes with me instead of trying to fix me, he pushes me to do anything I want, shows me patience when I don’t deserve it, and lets me nap as often as I want.
He is often overlooked right now. Our life is busy, and my daily focus is on our boys. But Marcus, if you are actually reading this, I see you. I see everything you are doing for me and the boys. I don’t always show it, but I love you for every perfect and not so perfect part of you. Now I’ll throw it back to 2011 and your favorite picture of us.
Happy birthday love.
All my love,
Betsy
Dear No One 