Now we come to the most dangerous post I may ever write. The one where I describe my wife. Actually, it is just the description of a couple of aspects of my wife that may make future posts more interesting. In the previous two posts I could pretty much say whatever I wanted as the kids can't read. If I say the wrong thing in this one, I could get in trouble. It's a good thing she is a patient and forgiving woman. =-)
My wife and I met at the orientation of her first job after graduating from Rice University. I can only surmise that after graduation she decided to take a break from the smart thing necessary to make it through Rice. It is that or Rice is not nearly as discriminating as people think.
Either way, she started dating me. This was a surprise to just about everyone who knew her including, I think, herself. If she could go back in time to tell high school Kerry about the person she was eventually going to marry, high school Kerry would never have believed her.
We are opposites on almost every level. We think in completely different ways. I truly believe that our brains are wired very differently. We can both look at the same situation and see completely different things.
I don't know how to explain it but somehow it works. We will be married 10 years in September and have been together much longer than that. We were engaged so long that friends started threatening to plan the wedding for us if we didn't finally do it ourselves.
She has a fairly quiet nature. This quiet nature is most people's impression of her until they really get to know her. And while she is much calmer than the rest of us in this household, she is not a pushover. Underneath that quiet nature there is a toughness that many do not give her credit for. It is this underlying toughness that, in my opinion, make her the person she is.
She was under the World Trade Center when the planes hit. While she did not know what had happened until she was safely on the Jersey side, I watched her pull herself together in the aftermath of that disaster knowing that if a few circumstances had been different she would have been in Tower 1.
We went out to dinner for our first anniversary, September 23, 12 days after the attack. We could smell the fires that were still burning as we walked to the restaurant. That night at dinner we spoke a lot about what had happened and what could happen. At another time, I will explain to those that don't know what life was like in NYC then but suffice it to say, people were on edge and not a day went by without multiple disruptions due to bomb threats and even attempts.
I asked her, if after everything she went through she wanted to move. She told me no. It wasn't how she said it though, it was the look in her eyes when she said it. There was steel there.
When Lehman Bros collapsed, she was an employee there. Eight months pregnant and looking at facing child birth with the possibility of her job and insurance suddenly taken away, she never faltered. There is something inside her that bends but never seems to break.
I won't go into what kind of mom she is or what kind of person she is, not because I don't think she is a great one of each but because it should become evident as more posts are written.
How she puts up with me I don't know, but I thank God she does. I don't know what I did to be blessed with this spectacular woman, but it must have been pretty good. Or maybe, she did something really bad.
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