Dear Manny, Happy Birthday!

 Dear Manny,

Your special day falls rather nicely, right at the end of the school year. It makes for a convenient time to look back and celebrate a year's accomplishment. Your first full year as a professor, your first year in Maine, all the while surviving Sofia's first year too. I won't pretend this has been an easy, glorious, triumphant time. It's been hard, especially this past week. I wish you could have been feeling better celebrated leading up to your birthday. But your hard work is truly paying off.

You've taught four courses successfully. You've settled us into a new home across the country. You've traveled to conferences, given a slew of talks, and encouraged your students in their RoboCup tournament. You loved me through sickness and health and a little touch of madness. You helped see Sofia through from babyhood to toddlerhood. And as of this week, your little girl can say, "Ring," and you should be so proud! [Lobsters, Manny's particular brand of Math research is in "Ring Theory"] You've learned about 8 new branches of math in the past 12 months. How many Starred Algebras can there be, I want to know? Those layers within operator algebras just keep peeling away like an infinite onion. Which kind of infinity, you ask? You'll have to tell me.

You just keep blowing my mind with all that your mind can contain, all your brain can conceive of, and all of the love you're capable of giving. We had a long hard night this week, both of us collapsed on the wood floor of Sofia's room, begging her to sleep. But you were right there with me, or maybe it was me that was with you? Either way, there really is no one else I'd want to be roughing this road with.

I knew I had a crush on you when I saw you through my camera lens. But I started to love you when I looked across that BART platform, swarming with people, counting out the members of our SBIC group right along with me, to make sure we hadn't left anyone behind. You had no official responsibilities there, I was the leader, but you saw a burden on my heart and mind, and you took charge to relieve it. With our whole group assembled and accounted for on that train, I stood, fingering the little metal heart you'd just gotten for me on Market Street for our 2 monthiversary, and I thought, "this is a guy who's gonna help me get through the important moments in life."

All those brains, charming good looks, quiet insights, and humor that keeps me smiling while I'm pulling my hairs out . . . you're not supposed to have all of those things, maybe just two at a time. You're never eager to take the fame and glory of the leader role, but you lead me and our family in all the right directions, and I can not tell you how grateful I am for that, even though sometimes it takes more faith and self-control than I ever thought I could have, to follow you. You will probably never appreciate how rare and wonderful you are in this world, but I hope you know and feel how much I know that this is true.

I love and celebrate you today, Husband. Happy Birthday!

Love,
Your Wife