A Toast, An Ode, A Tribute:

To my darling wife, on the occasion of the completion of a year of Motherhood.

I had known you to think of others more highly than yourself, but I did not know selflessness until I had seen you as Mother. Never with such intimacy have I seen the life of one so devoted to the lives of others as yours has been.

I have known your heart to be capable of great love in our romance. What foothills were the heights of affection and adoration previously scaled--and how grand the pinnacles of love and devotion which you have ascended as a mother! If it weren't so strange to compare you to a furry animal, I would deem you my mountain goat of love.

Your commitment to our marriage has not lessened in the year we have shared with our son. In fact, you have daily defied mathematical order. You and I, Love, were one when we were two. Somehow, with a child, we two are still one even as we three have become one.



Sleeplessness and physical exhaustion have not weakened your pursuit of personal holiness. A blonde-haired, blue-eyed hunk has not come between you and the husband of your youth. The toddles of our toddler have not kept you from your quest for domestic dominion.

I have been witness to wonders in this year past. Our son has breathed with his own lungs for one year, he has fed with his own mouth (and how!) for every day of the past 365. We have seen the body, mind, and soul of William Isaiah Pearce grow for these months, and we are richer for it. These are wonders--indeed what wonders!--yet you are more wonderful.