Two days ago, Annie and I celebrated our tenth anniversary.  We knew each other before we became an item.  Here’s how we met . . .

It amazes me how smaller things lead to larger things, the greatest things.
It was Christmas 2002, I unwrapped a present from my Aunt Jane. It was a Barnes & Noble gift card, it was perfect really, it turned out to be the greatest Christmas present I ever got.
The Holidays had ended, the Midwest was settling into “get through the rest of winter” mode. I decided it was a good evening to use that card for some book therapy.
At the store, a voice jolted me out of my browsing,
“Brooks?”
I looked up, “Ann?”
“Back from Cleveland?”
“Permanently I’m afraid, things didn’t work out. How about you? Didn’t you move to D.C.?”
“Similar situation. What are you doing tonight?”
“You’re looking at it.”
“We were thinking about going to Old Chicago across the street, have a couple drinks and wait out Rush Hour traffic. Want to join us?”
“Us?”
“Yeah, Mary’s here too.”
“Uhm . . .Sure!”
“Great!” She looks over her shoulder, “Hey Mary! I found us a date!”
I am so glad I joined them.
Two months later, Ann had become Annie, and I was in Love with her.
One year after that, the day before her birthday, on the Merrimac Ferry crossing Lake Wisconsin, I asked her to marry me.
Eleven months later, we were married.
Today, is the tenth anniversary of the day I turned Annie into a wife and she turned me into a husband.
She still keeps me on my toes. Sometimes, using less than 50 syllables, she can still shut me up—on a few occasions, I was silent for a whole fifteen minutes.
She still forces me to be better, a better husband, a better father, a better person.
Christmas, 2002, best Christmas gift ever.