Our crew five years ago.

This week, Wendell and I will celebrate 36 years of life together. I’m so grateful for what that means, for what he has given me in these decades. Here’s a list. It isn’t complete.

In-laws.The kind you can share a back yard with and still be friends. The kind you miss when they are gone to Florida for the winter. (welcome home, Mom). The kind who really become your own big brothers and sisters, too.

Offsrpring. Felicity, Serenity, Joseph, and Charity. And Jared by heart, if not by birth. Which leads to Michael, Dan, Rochelle, Molly, and Ryan (in order of appearance) Followed by John, Andrew, Jake, Jesse, Claire, Ellery, Ada, Macy, Elena, Adele, Nola, Peter, Jude, and Simeon. (not in order of appearance) Plus one more who never appeared on earth but will be waiting for us in Heaven.

Security: Not just the deputy-sheriff kind (though I like that one) but the arm-to-hold-in-high-places kind, and the don’t-be-afraid-to-try-something-new kind, and the I’ll-be-here-when-you-get-home-from-your-writing-adventure kind.

Glory: Like C.S. Lewis in The Last Battle, he is always encouraging me to go “higher up and further in.”

Humility: We are also celebrating another milestone this month. Wendell’s five-year commitment to a recovery program for impaired physicians. That is the politically correct way to say that five years ago we discovered how truly broken we both were when Wendell became addicted to prescription drugs. The season was brutal. The healing has been a treasure. And the five-year anniversary is a bright star in my heart.

Hope: Six years ago, he gave me a slip of paper tucked inside a picture frame for Christmas. He was already very sick by then, and life looked bleak and sad. He had written one word on the paper. Hope. That is what he wanted to give me more than anything else in life.

And, he has.