I had just started this blog last year when Valentine’s Day rolled around. It was Sunday, and though I hadn’t yet developed a six-day-a-week rhythm for Walker, I took that day off.

This, then, is my first Valentine’s post —and the first about my valentine.

You may have met him in these pages before. He flits through them often: steadying my nerves, buoying my mood, even helping me begin this blog. He might cringe a little when I tell him that I’ve used a photo of our messy garage to illustrate one of my posts, but not enough to make me feel bad. For more than 20 years we’ve been raising children, keeping house, drinking endless cups of tea on Sunday mornings— sharing our lives. He is always there for me. He is calm and happy and forever a good sport.

While I sit around musing and pecking on my laptop, Tom is fixing a door, balancing an account, building a fire. He has the enviable ability to lose himself in his work, chores and hobbies. He is, always has been and always will be his own indisputably unique self. And most important, he has a heart of gold. Is it any wonder, then, that he was born on Valentine’s Day?

Happy Birthday, Tom!