7 years ago, I made the best choice I ever made. 7 years ago tomorrow, I went to the temple to marry my best friend. There, we promised to love and care for one another for time and for all eternity.
Howie (whose given name is Brian) is truly my better half. We met as teenagers. We got to know each other best when we worked in the same mall. (He was kind enough to allow me to take my breaks in his store. We jokes, wrestled, and sometimes he’d even take me for ice cream.)
Shortly after high school, he was called to serve as a missionary for our church in Southern Italy. He went to Italy and I moved away to go to school and we wrote letters to stay in touch, weekly letters. I learned to love Italian chocolate. He returned as I was finishing college. He returned to school and I decided I’d like to be a missionary and so, we traded places. I went to Chicago to work as a missionary and he went to school, and we continued to write letters.
We fell in love through those letters and a month after I returned home, He proposed. He presented my ring to me on a platter.. on the beak of a rubber chicken we’d mailed back and forth through all those years of letter writing. How could I say no?
Howie is the best thing that has ever happened to me. He has always known just what to say to calm me down when I work myself into an anxious fit. He knows how to make me laugh. He knows just the things to do to make me smile.
We’ve been through some difficult things in our marriage. Not the least of these has been taking care of our very special boy.
I don’t know how I’d do it without him to bring me clothes and treats when Patrick’s in the hospital, to read the “Jesus Book” to Patrick every night while I get meds ready, to get me out of the house when I get overwhelmed, to be my assistant for all medical procedures, to rejoice with me over the little triumphs no one else could understand, and to tell me that things will be ok even when neither one of us is sure of how they will.
I could not ask for a better friend, a better father to my son, a better provider, or a better husband.
Happy Anniversary, Howie.
Please don’t be mad for too long that I posted a tribute for the world to see.
Patrick Hoopes 