A Tribute to My Lovely Wife on the Occasion of Our 33rd Anniversary

     Several years ago, I was moved one day to write some thoughts to my wife.  She has granted me permission to reproduce them here as a tribute to her on this the 33rd anniversary of our wedding, October 22, 1977.  Some of the references would be made clearer with some explanation, but I have chosen to forego such details because I think the meaning emerges without benefit of such particulars.  I love Sandra Wynn Duggins Wyndham with all of my heart and I am immensely proud of the woman she is.

"Dearest Wynn,

     I know this looks terribly formal, typed rather than in my hand, but fear not!  You know how I have become fond of writing everything on the computer.

     This morning I saw part of the "Little House on the Prairie" episode where Carolyn gets the severe infection from a tiny cut on her leg (remember, the family is away from home and she nearly dies alone before deciding to lance the wound with a hot knife . . .).  Near the end, Charles is praying at Carolyn's bedside when she starts to stir and slips her hand over his.  The way he looks at her hand is so perfect for the moment.  Doc Baker says that Carolyn is such a courageous woman for taking the painful, drastic action she took to save her own life.  Through the course of that show's history Charles and Carolyn acknowledged their love for one another many times, in many circumstances, revolving around various aspects of their shared experience.  When I saw this scene, I started thinking about your courage . . . one of the many reasons I love you so much.

     It took courage for you to say yes when I asked you to be my wife.  Some might say it was starry-eyed immaturity that prompted you to agree but you were never starry-eyed, nor immature.  You knew the risks of marrying a young man with seemingly few prospects.  You left great security to begin this adventure with me.  How courageous you were when you consented to bear our children!  You were so young but you were well aware of the level of commitment required of a parent.

    When Russell was born with his life-threatening heart defects, your courage was revealed under circumstances faced by only a few.  Only 23 years old, you bore the weight of walking through the Valley of the Shadow of Death with the flesh of your flesh.  If you had been less strong, I don't know what Chris, Russell, and I would have done.  You heard things no mother ever wants to hear and watched your child endure things from which you would have given your life to spare him.  I'm sure it never occurred to you that walking this walk was courageous; you did what you did, the way you did, because you are who you are.

    You didn't marry a "preacher" and you couldn't have known how much courage it would take to be a minister's wife when I answered that call.  You have had to lug three kids and lots of stuff to a second home in the middle of nowhere every single week.  You have had to give up your husband's help for all the years he went to school after work rather than coming home to do his share with baths and homework.  You have agonized through decisions that were, to a frightening degree, out of our hands and have moved, and adjusted, and lived with whatever those decisions brought your way.  You even moved to a place far away from every one and everything you had ever known, a place you had never seen until you walked across the threshhold of that too-small seminary apartment (leaving behind our first beautiful, large, new from the ground up home, to do so . . .).

     You have had the courage to take stock of your life and change it.  You committed to the arduous struggle to return to school and get your degrees while raising a family and you had the courage to settle for no less than unmitigated excellence as a student and as a Mom and wife.  Along the way, you summoned all the courage life has forged in you as you constantly shattered every comfort zone you had ever known.  You had the courage to start a career climb in your chosen profession at the bottom rung and to reach for, and achieve, goals that must have seemed remote when you first dared to imagine them.

     I love you for so many reasons.  Your courage is not the least of them.  We joke about the toll life is taking on our faces and hair color, but when I see your face and stroke your hair, I cherish every moment of experience, and every act of courage, that has etched each gentle line and refined each strand.  You are a remarkable woman and I am more proud of you than my limits will allow me to express.

With All My Heart,
       Michael"

Happy Anniversary, Sweetheart.  I love you.


I wish for all of you who may read this, the blessing of such joy!

"The Doc"

I Wax Poetic

A bit of respite, a time of rest,
A time to be quite, a time to be blessed,
A time to rekindle, a chance to reclaim.
Cell phones off, e-mails unread,
Appointments forsaken, late to bed,
Vacation, vacation, vacation is thy name.

I think that I shall never see,
A poem as lovely as the sea.
Forgive me Joyce Kilmer, I could not resist,
Your words were so perfect to convey the gist.
What you saw in trees, and I love them too,
Is equally true of earth's blanket of blue . . .
Ah, turquoise as jewels and green as a pea.

Creation . . . brings beauty and order into swirling chaos.
Re-creation . . .  peace creeps in and settles down.
Vacation, God's gift of sabbath rest, is thy name.

Ah, vacation.

Dr. Mike
Tanned, rested, and thankful.

Down Time

The Doc is out for a couple of weeks . . . more when I return to normal life!

Adios,
Dr. Mike