Ramiro Perez Cisneros is the greatest blessing of my adult life. I fell in love with him and envisioned a happily-ever-after future with him. I remember looking at him as he was proposing to me on the beach at Corona del Mar and thinking that I could see forever in his eyes.
Even though I was head over heels in love with him then during that time of blissful, giddy, infatuation, I love him infinitely more now. We’ve held hands through my parents’ transplant, our wedding day, strolling by the canals of Venice and the catacombs of the Vatican, at movies, through concerts, while splashing in the Pacific Ocean, through intrauterine insemination and ultrasounds and the birth of our daughter, at his dad’s hospital bedside after his strokes, and at my father’s funeral.
If patience is a virtue, then Ramy is a saint. I’ve been impatient since before I was born (that’s probably why I came earlier than expected), but Ramy is always willing to delay gratification, like in waiting for me to finally be done with my Ph.D., waiting for us to buy a bigger house, patiently waiting for Rebecca to come along long after I was frustrated with the process, and enduring a long and difficult separation during my pregnancy while I was in Tennessee taking care of my dad. He is the embodiment of selflessness.
My dad often told people that if he could have put together a man for his daughter, he couldn’t have done better than Ramy. And it is true that we’re well suited for each other. I don’t think there are many people on this earth who have the sense of humor that Ramy and I share (and the rest of the world is likely eternally grateful for that) and who spend as many hours talking about both serious and esoteric as well as juvenile and inane things as we do. I wonder how many laughs we’ve shared in the past four and a half years, and I pray that we’ll have many decades of laughter together. On our first Valentines Day after we were married, I gave him something where I'd written 101 reasons why I love him on it. He seemed pretty surprised by it and I think he couldn’t believe I spent that kind of time in thinking those up, but what he didn’t know was that the hardest part of it was in narrowing it down to just 101, for there are infinitely more.
Seeing Ramy with Rebecca is my heart’s joy, and I have some of the most beautiful images of them laughing together and him holding her that will stay painted in my mind’s eye for all my life. Even as I type this now, I hear him downstairs talking to her so sweetly and patiently, which is punctuated by both their laughter. Nothing could possibly be sweeter than the adoration with which Rebecca looks at him, and it is deservedly so. I’m so thankful God blessed me with Ramy and that he blessed Rebecca with her daddy.
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