This question may have been the most important one that was ever asked of me. I was a senior in high school taking a speech and debate class on the merits of wanting to take a relatively easy class with my friends. In a one-minute spar debate, I had to defend the position of those who were not required to wear helmets. I spent the entire minute trying to distract my much younger (she was a freshman) opponent by flirting with her and talking to her. She was determined and focused. She won the debate handily, not only because she was more skilled (and determined to win) but because she was beloved by the class.
I didn't know at that time that she would eventually be my future wife, but it was absolutely an omen of things to come. In our seven years of marriage, (which probably extends to 11 years of friendship as she wrote me on my mission and was my friend even before that) I have had tons of times that Natalie's hard work and passion have made my life better. I'm going to share some of these with you. In no particular order:
- Natalie knew that when I was at BYU I wanted to direct a children's show for my undergraduate capstone project. Anyone who directed a show could do basically a 45 minute show and I didn't want to chop a show down, I wanted to do a great 45 minute show. So she went to the Library across the street from where we lived several times and brought home dozens of books. She found one that she was convinced would be the one, and I said, "Maybe, but this is my project, so we'll see." That book was called The King and the Magician and was the book, and changed my life forever.
- One time someone asked if Natalie knew any Chinese becuase I'd been studying it. We realized Natalie knew just a few, like "Wife", and "please" (which we'd say when we wanted a kiss), and "I love you" she also knew "e" which means hungry and is funny to say. Also, "Thank you." and a semi-cognate "Sandwich". This friend then pointed out that what I'd taught Natalie was, "Wife, I love you. Hungry. Sandwich please. Thank you." Oops.
- Natalie has always been someone who, kind of like Emma Smith, was willing to open our home to people. I have numerous times said, "Hey, I invited ____ over, and they'll be here in 30 minutes" and with great grace and love, she has people over. She's a great cook, and a great friend, and she loves everyone who walks in the door of our house.
- Natalie is good at everything. Literally. Everything. Let me explain. No. There is no time. Let me sum up.
- I having spent many many many hours trying to get up to the hardest levels of guitar hero in high school introduced it to natalie, and within 10 minutes, she was playing things on expert becuase the other levels were "awkward to play that slow." Yep.
- In this same vein, Natalie beat me at every game we ever played while dating. On our second date we went bowling and she beat be four straight times. We played games with my family, and while she didn't always beat everyone, she always beat me. She's faster, whip smart, and extremely skilled. at all manner of games. And a tiny bit competitive at times.
- People used to say, "tell me a little about her!" when they heard I had a girlfriend after my mission. It was hard to say that she played 4 instruments, was salutatorian of her class, went to nationals for speech and debate, had so many scholarships to BYU-Idaho in various fields that they literally wouldn't let her accept all of them, and she also is a great dancer. In our time being married, she's only accomplished more including winning awards at Dancesport nationals in Caberet, writing several children's stories, being on UVU's backup tour Ballroom team and dancing at 30+ weeks pregnant including doing some lifts and things, and she's working on a degree in Marriage and Family counseling right now.
- Natalie and I love our inside jokes. It's almost weird when people ask why we call each other Charlie. We have all manner of silly stories from chasing each other around our apartments. We have the long standing "your comeuppance is approaching" threat every time she throws water on me (which Matt Wyman may have seen the peak of). And we have so many more strange things that we laugh and joke about.
- Natalie almost always lets me pick the shows we watch together. We still need to finish a bunch of them, like Parks and Rec, Big Bang Theory, etc., but if I ask her to watch a show with me she will. This has also included her learning about and loving my sports teams, and going to games with me.
- Natalie has sacrificed a lot for me. When we were first married, she encouraged me to take a business class (which I got the second highest grade in and that was while skipping the pre-requisites) and has supported me doing less stable things like teaching theatre and then just going to grad school to do theatre. She has slowed her path through school. She gives up opportunities of things she wants. Our children will never fully understand how much time she takes in doing things for them that she doesn't always love to do. And probably even more so for me.
- I moved a lot growing up. 12 times across 3 states in 12 years. I'm now up to 6 states and over 20 different moves. By contrast, Natalie's parents moved into their home they built and still live in when she was 2. Natalie has moved more with me than she had her whole life growing up, and far away from family and friends. She has constantly befriended my friends, and made her own friends. She has dealt with constant turn over and being far away from the places, people and things she loves most. And she has done that for me, and never made me feel bad about it. That everyone should be so lucky.
- Natalie loves cats. When we were moving from Idaho back to UT, I was in school full time and going to be working nights. She was going to be home alone a lot (including 2 weeks when I went to China!) She was begging to find some place to live where we could have a cat. I was not sure this would happen, but she was. She kept saying, "When we move to Utah and have a cat..." and I'd have to hem and haw. Then when we secured a place, she said, "since we're getting two cats..." .... which happened....
- Natalie is a person who is sometimes hesitant to try new things, but with a little pushing she always does great. Because she's good at everything. She read Rhonda Rousy's book (which she loves) and then took a Krav Maga class. Natalie wanted to do some paint nights but was worried she'd be no good. Now she has a paint by number and adult coloring books on our desk as well as a sticker by number thanks to our good friend Aubrianna.
- Natalie loves simple things. Natalie lights up exactly the same with cheap flowers as with nice flowers. Natalie is excited by cheap burgers. Natalie's favorite videogame is a side-scroller called "SpeedRunner" where your goal is literally just to run the other person off of the screen. And, no surprise. She's good at it. Natalie makes simple things that stick around like a wreath made out of thesaurus pages. Like helping with my puppet I was stressed about my first year of school. And also like our two pretty cute kids.
- People often tell us that we have cute kids (which is a nice consolation given they're also very loud, and trigger happy with angry outbursts). When they say that, I like to remind them "It's genetic." That usually gets a polite chuckle when people know Natalie, and a skeptical eye when they don't. But ti's true. She's very cute, and our boys are very lucky she is. As my mother (and many others) like to remind me, I married up.
- And with that, I'd also like to add that she's a great mom. And that's been a hard thing. I'd be totally misleading you if I said either of the following things (1) We're great parents every day with no problems and (2) I didn't know marrying Natalie meant my kids were getting a great mom. Being a parent is harder and more important than any other work I've ever done. I'm in grad school which emotionally taxes a lot of people. Being a good parent requires stronger and better effort. And Natalie has the disadvantages that come with being away from home, and being married to a full-time student. What she does every day is hard. And she does it well. She spends individual time with our kids. She responds to their needs. She calls me to talk about them several times a day. She takes time out of what she'd like to do to be with them. She takes more time to do the things that have to be done (chores, errands, cooking) to involve them. Because she knows it matters to them. Because she knows they love it, and they love her. Natalie is the CFO, and the COO, and the CIO, the CRO and the CHRO, and so many more. There will never be powerful enough titles to encompass what she means for me, or for our family. And I love her.
