Every necklace
“I will take the next feeding, the next diaper and the next load of laundry. You have done the hardest part, and now it is my turn to carry more.”
“When you blow out your candles tonight, I will be making a wish too. I will wish for many more birthdays just like this one, right beside you.”
“If I could go back to our wedding day, I would not change a thing. Except maybe my dancing. Everything else was perfect.”
“If I could go back to our wedding day, I would say I do even louder. Every year with you has given me one more reason to mean it.”
“At dinner I say that you are doing well and change the subject to the weather. That is not what I think. It is all that will come out with other people there.”
“You came to the things that nobody would have blamed you for missing. The concerts, the long ceremonies, the ones that ran on in the rain.”
“All those exams and clinical hours, and now you are a real nurse. Your patients will never know how hard you worked, but they will feel it.”
“Once you are settled in, I expect an invitation to dinner. I will bring dessert, and I will praise whatever you cook, even the vegetables.”
“Half our Christmas traditions started because you asked for something once and loved it. The cookies, the movies, the matching pajamas, so much of it came from you.”
“The job was meant to be looking after you and steering you sensibly along. Somewhere along the way you turned into somebody I actually ask for an opinion.”
“We only see each other at the things the whole family has to turn up to. And every time, within about four minutes, we are straight back where we were.”
“You have never once answered the phone and sounded busy, not in my whole life. I know you were. You just put it down every single time I rang.”
“Before there was a family, there was you and me and a lot of big dreams. Look at what you have built. Every good thing in this house started with you.”
“We have lived in a few places, and every one of them felt like home. It was never the address. It was always you.”
“I have started noticing the things that only get done because you do them. The birthdays. The dentist. The card for my own father, every march, in your hand.”
“The world will sometimes ask you to be a little less of yourself. Please do not listen. Every bit of you is worth being proud of.”
“I have always known you were strong, but this year I saw just how strong. You faced every hard day with courage, and you never stopped being kind.”
“I have walked beside you my whole life, but never as proudly as today. When we reach the end of that aisle, I am not letting go. I am just making room.”
“Here is the best advice I have, and it is to keep dating each other. Even in the busy years, make time for just the two of you.”
“You teach the lessons in the book, and you also teach kids that they matter. That second lesson is the one they will carry with them for years.”
“I have seen how kind you are when you think nobody is watching. That is the truest thing about a person, and it makes me so proud.”
“I had no evidence and no reason and I was certain about you immediately. Every sensible thing I know arrived a long way afterwards and only ever agreed with it.”
“My only advice is to laugh often, forgive quickly and never go to bed angry. You probably know all of this already, because you have always been wise.”
“The first time we laughed until we cried again, I knew we were going to be okay. Thank you for finding the funny side, even when it was hard to find.”