My Marvelous Mel

Just a quick note for Mel. I appreciate all she does for me and my family. I am grateful for all the wonderful wives and mothers out there who work so hard for their families. Your work is invaluable to those lives you bless.

I love Mel for a lot of reasons:

• She cooks great meals and always keeps the family fed
• She cleans the house
  
• She does the laundry
• She makes lunches for me sometimes and brings them to work
• She makes great treats for me to eat... sometimes to share :(
  
• She cuts my hair
• She works day in and day out with the boys while I go to "work"
• She pampers me when I am sick or hurt
• She plays the piano for me when I want to sing show tunes
  
• She likes to do things with me, be it work or play
• She brings the boys and comes to visit me at work
• She likes to let me do things I like to do
• She is supportive and encouraging
• She gives good hugs (and I hug her a lot)
• She is patient with my shortcomings
  

I am grateful to have Mel for a wife. She is good to me, and a super mom for the boys. One of the things I admire most about her is her perseverance, the way that she quietly suffers through her trials in life. For those who don't know, Mel has a bad knee. Her knee is always causing her pain, sometimes worse than others. The only time I hear about her knee is when it locks and she can't bend it, or when it hurts bad enough she can barely walk. Sometimes I forget she even has anything wrong with her. This week, I have had a sore muscle in my leg. It was causing a constant, dull pain that was really distracting for me. I can only imagine how hard it must be for Mel to work so hard everyday, playing with the boys, running errands, doing chores, making dinner, being pregnant, etc. on a knee that isn't fit for a 90 year old, let alone a 26 year old.

“No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude, and humility. … It is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire.” - Orson F. Whitney, in Spencer W. Kimball, Faith Precedes the Miracle (1972), 98

I have learned a lot from my wonderful wife, and I have a lot left to learn. Thanks Mel for being a truly amazing person, I love you.