My Man

Warning: Bragging Ahead

I met Corey when he was a 17 year old boy - just 6 years older than the little girl that we now have together. We got married when he was 23 and I was 18. As you can imagine, when two kids get married, they have a lot of growing up to do. Sometimes "growing up" is hard and ugly and painful. Many times couples that have too much growing up to do don't make it. Thankful, by God's grace and a lot of commitment, we did. It is hard to be married. Period. But to be married to a kid - when you are a kid - is, I think, a little extra hard. But now, 21 years into this gig, to be the one that gets to sit back and see how much my man has grown and changed between now and then is more than an honor.

Corey has always been a hard worker and a family man, but in the last few years he has grown into a man like none that I have ever known. The last few days have been an example of this... On Wednesday, he got up at 5am, like he usually does, and spent time with the Lord before he got to work. That day, like many, he was gone to see a client before the kids and I even got up. He was supposed to go straight to another job to work on a project that evening and into that night, but he did not finish with his daytime work until after 8pm, so he bumped the late-night job to the next day. He went ahead and came home, helped get the kids in bed, and practiced his guitar (that he is learning to play in his late 30s). Thursday morning it was nice and cool outside, and he made time to sit outside with me as we drank coffee and laughed together at our funny baby. He then drove Jack to school (he had stayed home not feeling too well that morning) on his way to Dallas to see clients. He got home Thursday evening just in time to shovel in dinner with the family before we went to Jack's 7:30 baseball game where he pitched to and coached a bunch of little boys. He drove his family home near 10:00pm and headed out to do the job that he had bumped the night before. I just woke up from a dead sleep. It was 3am, and he was still not home. I called him, and he is still working - alone, in an empty office, in the middle of the night. Things are going slowly, so he will probably be there until morning when the people that he is working for arrive back to their office. At that point, he will patiently help them work out the kinks in their new computer network for half of the day - without having slept a wink. And tonight... he is going to take me on a date.

This is not the first or last time that I could tell this same story.

He is amazing! I am honored that I got to see his transformation from a boy to a man. Yes, I am proud.

I love you, Corey! Thank you for taking such good care of us. I could not ask for more.