Dear amazingly beautiful wife of mine, whose loins from which our offspring were birthed,
I cannot believe that we have spent exactly 17 years of our lives together. I still remember the day vividly: we were standing on top of the Sheares Bridge. As the clock struck midnight, the ships in the far off horizon released their flares and I asked you to be mine.
What a lucky man I was! Truly fortuitous! I count my lucky stars every other day!
And since you have been penning letters to me almost every year since then and I have never done so, I decided to do so today. To thank you for making me the luckiest sod on earth.
Thank you for incubating and subsequently birthing our two sons, the heirs to my esteemed family. My ancestors would be so proud of you! While they (the sons, not the dead ancestors) piss the crap out of me on a daily basis (because I am a magnificent grumpy old beast), I would not trade them for a million dollars in the world. (I may consider $1.5 million, though. Any takers?) My family thinks that they are my carbon copies but I reckon all their glorious and creative traits can only be from you. Because you are glorious and creative.
Thank you for lifting the household on your tiny, delicate shoulders. I will never wonder aloud why you are so tired. I know it is because your mind is always preoccupied by our needs. Without you, we won’t have toilet paper embossed with pretty flowers to clean our smelly backsides. Without you, we will not emerge from our baths smelling of organic lavender, our skins moisturised with lotions made only from natural ingredients. Without you, we will be eating rice, fried egg and dark soy sauce everyday as nobody will know what groceries to buy. Without you, our children will be uneducated heathens who do nothing but watch TV all day because YOU sorted out all their education and enrichment needs. I could go on, the list of our needs is surprisingly long. How on earth have I never noticed that in almost five years of parenthood, I will never know.
(Mostly because I am a MAN.)
Thank you for being so easy to love and please. Why, I don’t even have to buy you fancy jewellery or bring you out to expensive dinners to make you happy! All it takes is a trip to the hawker centre with a good char bee hoon and a solid cup of teh-si and your sweet, simple mind is satisfied. And you even buy your own jewellery and bags, out of your own pocket. Ha ha ha! You are quite the fool in love but as my idol Steve Jobs said, stay foolish!
Thank you for always putting our family first. You gave up your career to be the one who is grounded, so that our children can be picked up on time every single day (because you hate the thought of them seeing their friends leave while they remain in childcare). Even though you may be stressed from your own volume of work, you never fail to do this, because I have to work late every other day. Or travel to another continent for weeks on end. Meanwhile, you keep the household running, the children fed, bathed, read to and slept.
Thank you, most of all, for putting up with me all these years. As I said earlier, I am indeed the most magnificent grumpy old beast. Just like wine, I age and mature beautifully although I can be a teeny weeny bit short-tempered. Seriously, I don’t know why you put up with me. Oh wait, I do. It’s because you are just the most amazing and patient woman in the world! How lucky of me that you have both drop-dead gorgeous looks and virtue! Never mind that you are a bit on the, err, slender side, those un-wide hips have spawned two male descendants for my great family and THAT’S ALL THAT MATTERS.
So, 17 years huh. What an idiot you are, I mean, what great taste you have as am clearly a stud. I love you more than words can say and I love you so much that I hope when it is time for us to go, I will go first (only because you said you will haunt my new wife if I remarried after your death).
Love you,
“Jimmy”
Written on behalf of my husband. I know he would have written this, if he could.
Yannisms 