Hello, this is Josh’s wife, Dawn, and I requested to be his guest writer for this week’s article and my husband obliged. I hope you all don’t mind, and I hope I can add a little sunshine to your day.

Two Ellises are celebrating another 365 days around the sun this week. Our son, Jackson, had another one of those important milestone birthdays on July 16th. In looking at him and reflecting on the passage of time, it seems impossible that it’s been twenty-years since he entered into our lives. He has brought us happiness, pride, joy, and oh yes, sometimes added a worry line or two to our faces.

But as Dianne Von Furstenberg once said, “In my older face, I see my life. Every wrinkle, every smile line, every age spot…Your wrinkles reflect the roads you have taken; they form the map of your life. My face reflects the wind and sun and rain and dust from the trips I’ve taken. My face carries all my memories. Why should I erase them?”

What a wonderful quote!

Now on to the elder Ellis and the most important one in my life, my husband. July 17th is Josh’s birthday, which, this year doesn’t happen to be an “age milestone” or anything, but it is a day to celebrate, and it is always nice to hear “Happy Birthday” from family, friends, and acquaintances (Note from Josh: no matter which key they choose to sing in).

Many of you know my husband and how he is such a gentleman, but also an instigator, as I hear he has gotten away with many a prank. He is a creative soul, someone who loves his family deeply, and is witty with words. Some of you may have seen him as an athlete and a boy who grew into a fine young man.

There are times I wished I could have seen him in his high school days with the mullet and rattail (well maybe not that part of him), dashing across the finish line during state track, or during his high school football days, but I didn’t see the boy as he was growing into a man. I saw the boy whom became a man with endearing characteristics of caring, compassion, intelligence, and wittiness.

Josh is the man who puts a smile on my face. That smile is brought on by the love he gives me, the shoulder I sometimes need to lean on, and the laugh that escapes me in response to his odd and quirky remarks. This, and so much more, has contributed to building a love that I cherish.

The type of love I hoped for when I saw how some marriages, even after decades of commitment, can fall apart. A love that grew on the road, as we traveled together in that little two-door Hyundai, powered by squirrels, traveling through the hills and plains, navigating the hairpin turns, and engaging in a delirium of sunflower seed spitting to keep each other awake.

I am lucky. Lucky when he took my hand nearly 25 years ago and keeping my hand and my heart close ever since.

Speaking of lucky, I am also lucky in being with a man who was raised in a family that has a tremendous depth of love for family just as my family does. I witness this deep family love and caring every time I visit ND, or when my ND mom and dad head south and visit us.

My ND mom is such a special person to me, not only because she has opened her heart and her arms to me when I needed it, guiding, loving, and being compassionate during those bumpy times life throws at us, but because she is the mother to the man I love so dearly.

She is a mother who guides, cherishes, loves, and yes, sometimes even curses the children she gave life to. It takes a range of emotions to make them who they are.

My husband has these same traits, a man who loves deeply, cares compassionately, and lives life as it should be.

So if you happen to find someone to walk the path of life with, holding your hand and putting a smile on your face, you have been blessed with a tremendous gift, and like me, you are lucky.