Happy Birthday to My Best Friend

Do you have a friend, a very best friend, who you’ve known and kept close to for more than four decades? Some of us have – but those seem to be more rare today than they used to be.

So believe me when I tell you that I am one of the luckiest shmoes around. My wife, my absolute best friend, has put up with a vagabond journalist for more than 43 years. She’s followed me away from her parents and sisters to the dry and dusty lands of West Texas, the beaches of North Carolina, the lunacy of California, the land of lake effect snow in South Bend, the broken roads of East Texas and to the hills and hollers of Kentucky.

She’s given me two beautiful and wonderful daughters and they have given us eight delightful grandpups – seven wonderful boys and one gorgeous and talented girl.

Yes sir, it’s been a trip! Not to say it’s all been smooth sailing. How could anything over 40-some years not have bumps and valleys?

But through it all she has stayed – even when she probably didn’t want to – traveling along, signing a song . . . (sing it with me now), side by side.

As one of my favorite people used to say, truth to tell, we shouldn’t be here. Back in 1982 or ’83, we were engaged and trying to figure out where we were going to get married. I was Catholic and she was Lutheran. We met with clergy from both religions and the Catholic priest gave us a compatibility test.

We failed.

Miserably.

We failed so bad that he refused to marry us.

(Yeah, I know he’s a man of God but I sure hope he’s reading this today!)

See, the thing is we may not have been the perfect match – but my weaknesses were her strengths. Her weaknesses fell in the area where I had some talents. So together, we helped make up for each other. Sure, it produced some angst, but it also helped us in a lot of ways, especially parenting.

Like I said, we had our issues. Neither of us (but especially me) were good at arguing. Agree to disagree? Well, we’ve learned over time. A few decades ago, we stunk at it. I really stunk.

But you know what, we didn’t give up. We didn’t quit on each other. And we’re still standing . . . together.

Today, March 18, is my best friend’s birthday. And so I offer her this: I thank you for all the years. I thank you for the wonderful times. I thank you for our family. And I thank you for helping me be who I am today.

I love you forever and a day, Linnie Lou and I wish you the happiest birthday possible! May you have many more safe, healthy and happy ones!

(And if anyone is wondering how old she is today . . . like I said, I’ve learned a thing or two over the years. Wonder all you want.)

Two cents, which is about how much Timmons said his columns are worth, appears periodically on Wednesdays in The Paper. Timmons is the publisher of The Paper and can be contacted at ttimmons@thepaper24-7.com.