Dear Stilts,

I hope you were able to find a moment alone to read this, even if it was just on the walk to the car with Rockie. I wrote the first draft of this myself, but it turned out looking terrible so I paid my 9:00 student $10 to rewrite it for me. She even smoothed out the grammar some, so if it sounds smarter than normal, that’s probably why. …I think that might be an abuse of my power as an instructor, but I figure if there’s any day I can get a pass on it, it’s today. I hope that your morning was gentle, that you didn’t feel sick, and that you got the apple juice and the cashews I packed in your purse because, let’s be honest, there’s no way you’re making it to 12:30 without a snack.

There are so many things I want to say in this letter because it occurred to me as I was writing it that this is the first thing I ever wrote that’s meant to be held onto forever. Everything feels so important, and at the same time, nothing feels important enough to be written down.

Butts.

You see what I mean? You have that forever now.

What I mean to say is that even with all the lead time in the world, I wouldn’t be able to come up with the right way to tell you just how profoundly you’ve shaped my life in the last year. You didn’t just save my life, you made it better in immeasurable ways, you made me better in immeasurable ways, and I’m so grateful that you found me when I needed you most. You give me purpose. You give me a reason to wake up in the morning, to be a person worth coming home to, and all I can say, all that will ever be worth saying, is thank you. From the deepest place inside me, that animal place that wants home and belonging and warmth and human contact: thank you for being the reason that I’m better.

Even though we can’t do the whole vows thing for another year and some change, I wanted you to go into today with a few promises in your back pocket. Important ones. Like, I promise to love you. I promise that you’ll never go hungry. Not even for a minute. I promise never to let you go to bed angry, or to fall asleep with a fight unresolved. I promise to watch romantic movies with you at least once a week and not to complain when it becomes too obvious that Gerard Butler is more handsome than me. I promise to keep your birthday and our anniversary and a few surprise days in my phone so I don’t forget them. I promise never to forget you. I promise never to let you feel forgotten, by me or anybody else. I promise to love you. I promise to carry tissues in my truck and not laugh when you cry on dates. I promise to take you on dates. I promise to kiss you. I promise to tell you I love you enough times that you never forget it for even a second. I promise to keep hiding your vitamins so they don’t feel like swallowing golf balls. I promise to make you feel safe. I promise that you will be safe. When your anxiety lies to you, I promise to help you keep your feet on the ground. I promise to love you. I promise to protect you. I promise to fight for you, to support you. I promise to take this day and turn it into a spectacle someday, so God and the whole world can know how blessed, how beside-myself lucky I am to call you mine. I promise to do everything in my power to make a life and a home that you and the baby can be proud of. I promise to try and be a man, a husband and father, you can be proud of. I promise never to abandon you. I promise to cherish you. I promise to be faithful, to be steadfast, to be upright, to be good. I promise to love you.

I promise to love you.

I promise to love you.

I love you.

But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” —Ruth 1:16-17