Ode to Joy

Today is a special day for joy and celebration in our home – it is the 23rd anniversary of my wife surviving a near fatal automobile accident.

A weather-induced accident in Buffalo, she suffered a fractured skull, broken collarbone, and broken ribs. While in the hospital, she developed a hematoma on her brain that required emergency surgery. As she was wheeled into the operating room, the doctors told her mother she had a 10% chance of living with a high probability of being a vegetable if she survived. Three months later, she was back in graduate school.

I met her 7 years later when, after completing her Ph.D., she came out West to do a post-doctoral fellowship. We were a blind date that worked. She is spunky and spirited, loyal and devoted, a good-hearted woman who has blessed my life for 16 years and been a wonderful mother to our 3 children. I am a better man for having married her; words will never be able to adequately express the depth of my love for her.

Life has not been easy for her in recent years. Severe, chronic and as-yet undiagnosed abdominal pain has led to 4 surgeries, significant weight loss, other trips to the emergency room, the inability to work, and sometimes difficulty just getting through the day. Through it all, she has lived life with amazing courage and grace. She is my hero.

So here’s to you, Dianne, my one and only true love. The kids and I all celebrate the gift of your life and thank God that you are in our lives.