A love letter to Anita

When I first laid eyes on Anita, it was in October of 1995 at the Michigan Department of Natural Resources’ (DNR) field office in Saginaw. I had been hired by the Michigan Environmental Council (MEC) to work on the Great Printers Project, a collaborative pollution prevention initiative targeting the state's lithographic printing industry. This was my first project meeting, and Anita was representing the DNR.

She was breathtaking. I tried to pay attention to the discussions but I couldn’t stop looking at her. Her long black hair, shiny white teeth, amazing eyes and beautiful smile really were captivating. We were both married to other people so I was content to just bask in the glorious fact that this striking young woman would be taking my phone calls and meeting with me regularly – about the project, of course.

A friendship developed. She had such good energy. She was so positive and engaging and a little naïve. She saw the best in people and connected with anybody and everybody. She tended to ramble – her lengthy voicemail messages were legendary – and share much more tangential information about a subject than was required but it only added to her charm. I would have been smitten, had we each been available, but our friendship remained appropriate. MEC eventually backed out of the project to focus on other issues but Anita and I stayed in touch.

Fast forward to 2007. My second marriage had just ended abruptly. Anita’s was fraying at a lightning pace – it turns out her off-putting husband, who I just thought was a self-absorbed jackass, was actually a psychopath. We decided to meet at a local pub for lunch one Saturday. That was the beginning of my new life with the woman of my dreams.

People can make marriages work. They can ignore things that irritate them and settle for less than what they really want. But then there are those connections that Hollywood makes movies about: the “we-belong-together-and-we-can-get-through-anything-as-long-as-we-have-each-other-and-I’ll-die-if-you’re-not-in-my-life-and-I-need-you-like-air” relationships. They really do exist. I’m in one now.

Anita’s so tolerant and patient and dedicated to doing whatever she can to make life better for her children, her mother and me. She’s such an amazing mom and friend and daughter and partner and colleague and teacher and sister and advisor. She’s so intelligent and strong and forgiving and understanding and witty and talented and sensitive and real. And she’s still breathtaking. I’m still mesmerized by her beauty, which I now know is so powerful because it comes from within her huge heart and radiates outward.

I’m not afraid to admit that I have to struggle not to cry sometimes - the eyes start to water and the chin starts to quiver – when I look at her across the room or next to me in the van or in bed or in the grocery store and it hits me that I get to spend the rest of my life with this woman. Men dream of this. Men try to buy this. I just had to wait.

And get this: she's hiked in the Himalayas and the Grand Canyon, she likes to shovel snow, and she can fix things around the house. Don’t ask me how I got so lucky because I have no idea.