To My Wife, Happy Birthday

Today marks my first wife's birthday. I wanted to buy a cake to accommodate all the candles on it, but it was almost too big to come through the door. And once I did get all the candles lit, we had to call back-up to get the flames out. Sixty-five candles produce a lot of heat (and so does the number of candles I had on her cake).

You may wonder how we had stayed together for as long as we did. It just seemed that we had so many differences. After all, she was from the country, I was a city boy. She, the eldest of five girls, had no brothers, whereas I was the youngest of four sons, with no sisters. I was good looking and she - well, she recognized that. Marriage, then, became a steep, steep learning curve for both of us.

Like any marriage, we stuck at it through thick and thin, mostly my thick skull and my thin skin. It's not that I wanted to be pampered – perish the thought! - but someone should have told me that "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" was not a pre-marriage manual. It's a wonder she stuck with me as long as she did.

So much changed when the first child came. And the next one, and then number three. After that, who was counting? My personal demands didn't change; my daily routine pretty well stayed the same. But for my first wife, well, let's just say she took this parenting – and motherhood, in particular – very, very seriously.

Let's see: There was a change in priorities, a change in schedule, a change in vocabulary, a change in perspective. Even the diapers had to be changed. She went to bed tired, slept tired, woke up tired, then slaved tired all day. The one and only time I came home and said, "What did you do all day?" was the last time I ever asked that question.

I should clarify: I can still see out of one of my eyes.

But the years marched on, and no matter how much we tried to avoid it, we celebrated her birthday on a annual basis. (Technically, of course, it's not her birthday each year; there is only one birth day per person, per life. It's actually the anniversary of her birthday.) I suggested we celebrate the anniversary of her birth day every second year, thus saving time and money (to say nothing of candles and phone calls to the local fire department). I did that once, but it was not well received – to put it mildly.

I should clarify: I still have hearing out of my left ear.

I was going to phone my friend Russ at the Rolling Pin to bake a cake for her, but I was afraid he would run out of flour. I told that to my first wife and she didn't exactly laugh at my version of humour, to put it mildly. Or, as I told my neighbour later, "No, sir, I actually do enjoy sleeping out here in the doghouse."

So my first wife's birthday is today. I'm sure she is out there somewhere, reading this column, perhaps even now as you read it. And when I say somewhere, I mean at her desk downstairs, or maybe she is relaxing on the couch for a few brief moments.

You get it now, don't you? My first wife is still my only wife, my present wife, the devoted mother to my nine children.

So, happy birthday, Gwynne. I'm doing this in my column because I couldn't find a card that could say it quite this way.