To A.

I seem to have spent a lifetime looking for and trying hair products. The ethnic products are too heavy and all of the other products are too light for my thick, dry hair. That's exactly what I was doing 16 years ago tomorrow. It was a Saturday and I had some errands to run. I walked down from my apartment in Rosslyn to the Rite Aid at the metro building. I was walking around in there and all of a sudden there you were. Our eyes met and we started chatting. I remember thinking, "This man has the whitest, nicest teeth. They must be false." I also thought this poor dear has a bit of a speech impediment. (yes, I know-It's a foreign accent). We exchanged numbers and we have been together ever since.

Oh, and what a ride this has been. We have been through so much: education-2 masters for you, 1 for me (i must catch up), various illnesses-of course you can't just get the flu, you have to get cancer, and various asthma attacks and estrogen loss for me. I would not have made it through all of the things we have been through without you. Your amazing strength of character and your eternal optimism (yes, sometimes it gets on my last nerve-like when I call you A. Vincent Peale) have won me over again and again. You amaze me with your boundless energy and your refusal to ever, ever, ever give up on anything.

How do people find each other? There is really no logic that a woman from a tiny place in Southwestern Pennsylvania and a man from Guyana, South America should have ever met, but we did.

You know, that I don't ever think I have been especially blessed, but when it comes to our relationship I know that I am.

You are my world and there really is no me without you. You are my sail and my compass and I am greatful every day that I wake up beside you.

Happy Anniversary my love. You are the best.

"Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart." Marcus Aurelius