Twenty years ago today I missed the University of Michigan vs. Ohio State University football game for a date with a stranger I met on the internet. It was the best decision of my life. I brought along a deck of cards and a cribbage board to the Cafe Verdé coffee shop in Ann Arbor, in case we ran out of things to talk about and needed a way to help pass the time. I didn’t need them. We talked for three hours about all sorts of things, including how she had worked at Proctor and Gamble as an engineer designing tampon applicators. I had never even considered that engineers did that sort of thing. It was immediately apparent to me that this woman had a lot to offer.
At the end of our third date, I asked her if she was looking for a serious relationship, because I was. It kind of scared her off a bit. I was just so excited to have found someone so terrific, and I was looking for a wife, but I didn’t want to waste my time with someone just looking for a little fun. About nine months later she proposed to me in a p.s. in an email. Of course I accepted, and in another nine months, we were happily married.
It is difficult to imagine what my life would have been like for the past twenty years without her. I am fairly certain that I would have not traveled nearly as much, to fantastic places like the Galapagos Islands, Iceland, Naxos, and Malta. I find it hard to believe that I would have found such a supportive partner, willing to accept me for who I am, including some of my “crazier” ideas, like growing huge beards and curly mustaches. After twenty years, we still never run out of things to talk about. I must not forget to mention that in addition to being a great life partner, she is also a wonderful mother to our two children, who have occupied much, but not all, of our attention over the past fifteen years.
You have opened my eyes to so many things. You have pushed me to become a better father, a better son, a better friend, a better lover — a better person. I am so glad to have spent the last twenty years with you and I look forward to twenty more. I love you, Clare Dibble.
