My Christmas Present lives with me!

On a day that was the shortest of the year, the darkest, the 21st of December I married my wife.  The thing about that day was that it also was the day that would mark the beginning of daylight taking more and more of the day back until Summer and sunshine and warmth abounded.   This has been my life since then!  I get to be Debbie's husband!


My oldest son was in the military, in Afghanistan, so my second oldest was best man and Debbie's daughter and son and my older and younger daughter were all part of the wedding party.  My oldest daughter was All-State choir and has a wonderful soprano voice, so she sang "How Beautiful" for the wedding.  My son Dave and I did a duet, "Unchained Melody" and then we were married.

My wife has been a mom to all of my kids and her kids and I have been a dad to them and so now they are just our kids and three grandkids to boot!   We did the Brady Bunch thing, I was Mr. Mom and she was a widow.  We met online on a Christian dating site and it was about four months from first meeting in person to marriage.  Other than trusting Christ, marrying Debbie is the smartest thing I ever did!

Debbie is an artist.  She does portraits and drawings and paints eggs and makes jewelry and engraves glass and continually surprises me with her talent.  She makes works of art out of Halloween pumpkins.  She designs t-shirts and shoes.  Most of it is to give to other people.  She makes food for the young men (our sons) who still live with us, she keeps the house going and does the shopping.   She is always having to clean and vacuum, especially since we have two big furry dogs.   She is a household engineer par excellence!

Faith and Chloe, our two big furry dogs

My wife also could name all the Supreme Court justices at the drop of a hat.  She is a political animal and she works to help get good people elected behind the scenes.   While I write on political blogs, help with some campaigns and use my talents as a professional big mouth, she goes door-to-door handing out information, getting signatures to put people on the ballot, answering questions and taking surveys.  She has worked on calling from a phone bank to find out what people are concerned about for the coming election and help promote the best candidates.

We work in ministry together along with my oldest son (now back from the military to go back to college) working with Senior High School kids.  Right now she is painting Christmas eggs to give to the girls in her small group within the big gathering of students.   She is a Bible brain so we have great conversations and study together and pray together at night.  We do not always agree on everything so we talk things out and study together to try to figure them out.  With our interest in history and science and so many other things we can just sit and talk for hours or we can enjoy movies together or listen to music together.   On our last trip we mainly just jammed out to Muse when we went to visit her mom and Aunt Joyce for Christmas.


We were chaperones at last year's Christian Prom and likely do it again this year.  I have lost weight since then, finally had the knee surgery I needed and am trying to get back to my football weight. 

I married my best friend and the girl of my dreams!   Once I had a true love and because I was involved in drugs and other things I felt unworthy of her and broke up with her and wondered if I would ever know the kind of love that is undying and unfathomable.   But it can happen twice and it has for me.  I told Debbie that she has ruined me for other women, if anything happened to her I cannot ever marrying again because no one could ever measure up to my little portable wife (I used to call her that cause I could pick her up and hold her with one arm.  Can't do that anymore, not until my knee is all healed up, rats)!

Heaven on Earth is to have a loving family that you trust and I am so blessed to have that!  I love all my kids, they all love me, and the same is true for Debbie!  Our moms are both very happy for us.   In my case, my corner of Heaven with my wife is my Christmas present every single day.   She is perfect for me and I couldn't possibly be happier with anyone else!

My Christmas wish for all of you who ever read my blog is that you find the right person and marry and know the greatest Earthly joy available!   Yes, even those of you who do not like my blog and apparently do not like me, either.  There is not much worse than being stuck with the wrong person and while alive on Earth there is nothing better than loving the right one!!!  I cannot even tell you what it means to find your soulmate in this life, it is better than being rich or having fame or anything else I can think of right now.  My children are all wonderful gifts, but eventually they grow up and marry and move away and have their own children.  But Debbie and I will have each other forever in this life and we'll have the same destination in the next.  So forever love is possible.  I hope you find it!

I was a singer in a rock band who became a singer in Christian venues after I became a, natch, Christian!  Before I was a believer my favorite group was Led Zeppelin and that was Debbie's favorite as well.  But I also was a big Beatles fan and I always figured if Paul McCartney could find Linda and be true to her and love just one woman, then maybe I could, too?   So I went looking for my Linda.

We may be Christians, but we both loved Led Zeppelin and for a long time Debbie wanted me to play "In My Time of Dying" at her funeral if she went first.  I figured for her sake I would get it done even if it freaked out the funeral director, but I just don't want her to die at all.  If she is going to die, I want us to go together so we don't have to grieve for the other.   Anyway, this year she changed her mind  about her funeral song.   "Thank You" was the first Zep song that Robert Plant wrote with no help from other band members and after he did, Jimmy Page realized Plant had real songwriting talent and Plant then input more and the band was richer for it.  Their personal lives were trainwrecks, but they made such great music!

"Thank You" was written by Plant for his wife, Maureen.  He was not such a faithful husband.  So his words are greater than his actions.   But I love my wife with all my heart and I can play it for her and mean it completely.  So I think I will play it for her now so it gets done and now she doesn't get to die before me!   You gotta stay with me, baby!   I love you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!