A Happy GraduBirthday card for my husband

I wrote this poem for my husband two years ago, and, maybe, someday I'll write him a new message for his birthday.  These are still the best words I can summon to say how much I love and respect Brian.  I'd wanted to read the poem at his graduationdinner, but it was a bit too noisy and we were all too happy slathering our brisket with sauce to get teary-eyed -- especially me.  So, here's a delayed "Happy Graduation" message bundled with a "Happy Birthday" post for the man I fell in love with somewhere around my 15th birthday.

Redeemer Seminary - 2015 (missing Rebekah who hadn't yet returned from school)

43 years (now 45)

A poem* for my husband on his birthday

Ninety-two, ninety-three, I most remember   

As the winter a blizzard shut us in and we are   

Broke from a hard two years as newlywed  

Where the meager provision of being   

Student, employee, father for our first born

Son and now another one on the way, we've

Neither a degree nor cash. Dreams die in   

Fatigue and bank accounts give way as you and your    

Muscle and sweat and hope fall in to make   

A loss. We lived in two bedrooms down the   

Hallway from kind friends in their nice  

Neighborhood. Or that has all really   

Happened and we go to Johnson City where,   

Thanks to Rick Jindra and Steve Conroy,   

You get a job cleaning cars at Dependable   

Auto Sales. It’s all a backwards dream, a slog

To get a life and home before the next

Arrival of another son, your dogged days 

Of honor. A church acquaintance  

Has encouraged us that giving when we   

Don't think we have anything to give keeps the   

Scarcity of our mindset overwhelmed by

The bounty. I love the mentors, at least I   

Think I do, in their wisdom, their attempt   

To find ways for us to find a living from the WIC   

Office. Otherwise the early years seem   

Like a country music ballad. A stunned   

Twenty-something man runs from school to work   

And home up three floors of the apartment house on Frederick Street,

Chasing a toddler with the second-born in hot

Pursuit where otherwise you sat up late writing  

Required lines, planning for your next degree  

And child, a daughter. We were waiting to get our   

First salary and listening to the Yankees win the pennant

On the radio. You worked, you dreamed, you wrote the   

Fifty-two pages of your thesis, the new baby  

Arriving near the end. I slept on the couch and  

healed and nursed and cried while you stayed up

Thirty-six hours straight, determined. Then that   

Summer there is the day of the great Teaching Job   

Offer, we move to Conklin -- Richard T. Stank

Middle School. God bless George Schuster  

Down the hall. You read “Goodnight   

Moon” to your children and Teddy Roosevelt

To your students, and Rick Patino for the team.   

Then it’s winter again. My water breaks   

And we head back to Lourde's Hospital   

And we welcome another daughter, and   

Sometime just about then you must have almost   

Seen yourself as others see or saw you,   

people like Dr. Jagger and Scott Gravelding, but could not quite   

Accept either their affirmation

Or their equally anointed naming. Uncertain,   

Afraid, you kept at it. A few years later

Crisis and pain and forgiveness fall in to make   

A calling. You lived into yourself, a man named. 

You are still the father, student, teacher, much the same,

but now also mentor, pastor, friend.

Now you are happier, I think, and older.

Those of us lucky enough to know you say

That we have won the 

Brian Murphy lottery.

*Adapted from Yesterdays, a poem by ROBERT CREELEY

1996

 (Missing Alex who was 2 years old and lost out when we drew straws for the number

of tickets we had and Natalie who wasn't born yet.)