Recently, Oprah’s website had a call out to husbands asking them what they loved about their wives. Being the sappy, sentimental type, I figured I’d add my two cents…
Dear Oprah,
I’d like to let you know a few things about my wife, who in my humble opinion, is the greatest wife in the entire history of Wifedom. You spend a lot of time on your show talking about people who are living their dreams. I can proudly say that I am living mine. But the only real reason I can say that is because of the support and sacrifice of my wife, Kim.
I am a cartoonist in Madison, Wisconsin. I’ve spent the last three years drawing funny little pictures in an attempt to make people laugh, and reflect on the things in life that really matter (not unlike yourself). Shortly after we were married a little over three years ago, we made the decision for me to give it my best shot to get “Kim & Jason” off the ground. We have mostly lived off her teaching salary (which is a few zeroes short of a Sammy Sosa paycheck).
Together, we’ve experienced the many wonderful and frightening ups and downs that come with starting a new business and chasing one’s dreams. Without her support and encouragement, I may have quit a long time ago. Not only has she financially kept us afloat, but she has been the rock behind our company as well.
I seem to get a lot of the credit just because I’m the artist, but Kim is always willing to do whatever thankless task needs to be done to keep things going and make us a success. She works harder than anyone I know. This dream of mine has evolved into a dream of ours, and now she practically works two full-time jobs. When she’s not keeping 24 kindergartners from burning down the school and teaching them a thing or two in the process, she’s busy packaging orders, keeping track of our mailing list, contacting newspapers to get them to try running our strip, making sales calls, being a sounding board for some of my crazy ideas, and numerous other seemingly unnoticed tasks that keep us going in the right direction.
She’s beautiful and funny, she’s got a tremendous heart for helping others (especially kids), and she pretty much completely blows me away. Did I mention she was the MVP of her varsity volleyball team?
But while her work ethic and commitment are something to behold, my favorite thing about Kim is her extremely genuine and warm childlike spirit, which is what inspired me to create “Kim & Jason” in the first place. She prefers bowtie noodles over regular egg noodles because they’re more fun to eat. When she was little, she wanted a waterbed filled with juice because she thought it would be so cool to lie in bed and drink juice through a straw from it at the same time. Sure, she’s a horrible speller and can’t seem to go a night without a beat up homemade pillow she’s had since Reagan’s first term, but I know that even as I grow older, I’ll never have to grow up as long as Kim is by my side.
I’m not sure how I was able to be lucky enough to land such a great girl, but I’m pretty sure it’s better than winning the lottery. All I know for sure is that she never gets enough credit for how far this company has come, or how great she is at being a teacher, wife, and friend. Hopefully someday “Kim & Jason” will touch the lives of lots and lots of people, and then everyone will know why her name gets to be listed first.