Cathie and I are childless this weekend! Cathie's folks took the kids Thursday night and we get them back tomorrow. We slept in, went to Angelo's for breakfast (same one that the semi-famous song is about), took naps and spent time talking. I love her so much - her friendship, her sense of humor (more like mine than anyone suspects), her beauty, and her fun heart.
We were talking at breakfast about a quote that we'd seen on Freier's blog a while back. He hadn't updated his page in a while, and I kept coming to it and re-reading it each time. It took reading it about five different times, and then having Cathie bring it to my attention for the magnitude of it to sink in. It's from Henri Nouwen's book Bread for the Journey:

Friends and Their Unique Gifts
No two friends are the same. Each has his or her own gift for us. When we expect one friend to have all we need, we will always be hypercritical, never completely happy with what he or she does have. One friend may offer us affection, another may stimulate our minds, another may strengthen our souls. The more able we are to receive the different gifts our friends have to give us, the more able we will be to offer our own unique but limited gifts. Thus, friendships create a beautiful tapestry of love.

Cathie and I have very different needs for friendship based on our different personality types, and we've both come to realize the truth in this quote in different ways. My journey in relationships over the past 10 years helped me figure this out, and reading the quote helped me sum it up. Cathie on the other hand has been wrestling with this for a while, reading this helped her see her friendships through a new paradigm.

My wife has such an amazing heart, and she teaches me so much about life and about myself. I'm crazy in love with her even after being married for 11 years. We've been together almost half of our lives, since we started dating around age 17! Amazing to think about how much we've shared and grown over the years.