John is not your typical guys’ guy.  While he does have his moments of crashing around the house and acting like your average ogre, the vast majority of the time he is supportive, thoughtful and an equal partner in raising our children and maintaining our household.   Over the years, I have developed a nickname for John - the Nurturer.  It came to me one day as I looked around our kitchen at approximately 15 glass jars of water each filled with sprigs of rosemary, all sprouting roots.  I wanted to use some of the rosemary for dinner, but John couldn’t bear the idea of parting with one of the plants regardless of how small its root buds were.  I think the potential life represented by the rosemary roots he had nurtured was too tremendous.

Over the past thirteen years, John has consistently worked to nurture and care for our love.  After two years of dating, I followed a life-long dream and joined the Peace Corps in Senegal.  Within months of leaving, John was convinced I was the one.  During a ten-day rendez-vous in France, his constancy and strength in our love blew me away.  Having always been gun-shy about marriage, I was full of “what-ifs” and disaster scenarios.  But his patience and confidence settled my fears.  After France, we courted through correspondence for six months.  And when I next saw him, after he had quit his job and flown to Senegal with a ring, I was ready to say yes.

Since that day, John and our relationship have been the bedrock in my life.  We have weathered two graduate degrees, job beginnings and promotions, the birth of two children, the loss of a pregnancy and many more mundane daily joys and sorrows.  Through it all John has continued to give and nurture the roots of our love - roots of truth, simplicity and appreciation - just as he nurtured those rosemary roots.

In John’s work at Hyde I see the love that I bask in every day shared with the students and larger community.  John’s gift as a teacher comes from his deep belief in the potential that exists in everyone and the wonder he experiences everyday nurturing peoples’ roots.  I see the joy he experiences in growing his students and I am struck by how perfectly his essential nature is matched to his profession.

Our partnership is one that inspires me to be a better person every day.  On this Valentine’s Day I am so grateful to my husband for the love and roots he has nurtured in our lives.

Happy Valentine’s Day Nurturer.

Love,

Kirsten