Thoughts on my wife

Stephanie has her final radiation treatment today and I want to dedicate a post to her.
--Feel free to skip if you're not in the mood for mushy. It's that kind of post.--

I was madly in love with this girl already when I married her. I must have been...we got married 8 months earlier than planned after all. And then came the cancer and all of the trials of the last 8 months. Through it all she has been amazing. She has bulled straight ahead through cancer like it was just something on her to-do list. Her attitude has been positive, and she has managed to simultaneously grapple with a life-threatening illness, incorporate a new husband into her world, acclimate her kids to a new stepdad (and vice versa), learn and adjust to a new job with expanded responsibilities in a new therapeutic realm, buy and move into a new house, and deal with the loss of a 14 year companion doggy. I thought she was a tough cookie when I fell in love with her. I had no idea.

That's not all there is though, obviously. She's just a wonderful person, loved by (almost) everyone in her life, smart, happy and fun to hang out with, kind, loving, caring, a great mom and a wonderful partner (not to mention damn sexy). I had suspected back when we got engaged that this was the case, but I didn't have the perspective on it then that I do now. The surreal feeling of "Wow, this girl married *me*?!?!" has only grown with time, and I feel lucky every day to be included in her life.

I'm glad we got married when we did. The last 8 months might not have resembled the First Eight Months Of Marriage I envisioned in my head growing up, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. We have grown stronger through this, individually and as a couple and as a family. The post-cancer years will only be sweeter for having been through all of this up front.