A Tribute!

The last week has been a very interesting one. Monday and Tuesday were spent in Tucson, setting my wife and son up in an apartment.

Before anyone panics, Jodi isn’t leaving me. Not yet anyway. She’s down there with Jacob (my 5-year old with cerebral palsy) at a summer camp/class of a program called Conductive Education. You can learn a bit more about it at http://ceofutah.com. That camp will last until the end of July, when we’re bringing it up to Salt Lake for another month beyond that.

But in the meantime, Jodi’s living in Tucson, and I’m living in Salt Lake.

The last time we did this, in February and March, she lived in a spare room with an elderly couple. So this time, it felt totally different. She’s in an apartment complex, with a two month lease. We had to go out to thrift stores and buy pots and pans and silverware and lamps. It felt like we were setting her up in a residence, and that residence was apart from me. That hit home pretty deep.

A few days earlier, I had been in Vegas, doing a symposium for my work. Another one of the presenters there had apparently just gone through a pretty ugly divorce. He seemed to enjoy making the audience laugh at her expense: “I just lost about 130 pounds! (audience applauds) Of course, she took half my stuff with her…” It was pretty clear that, laughter notwithstanding, he was pretty bitter about the whole thing.

It makes me realize how lucky I am that my wife puts up with my nonsense, my quirks, my weirdnesses. We’re going to have our 18th anniversary this summer. And each year, I’m more and more amazed at the things she accomplishes for our family. What a lady!

MRKH
Mark Hansen
http://markhansenmusic.com