Today we celebrated the birthday of my beloved wife, Suthida. In the Dakota language, the word for wife is thawíču. The word for husband is hihnáku.
My father said that in his day that these Dakota words meant, "The Greatest Man and the Greatest Woman."
For 30 years my beloved wife has been the Greatest Woman. She has stuck with me through thick and thin.
Suthida has never consumed a cup of coffee, alcohol or soft drinks. She is one of the primary teachers in my life. In fact, sometimes, she knows me better than I know myself.
As well, my intense energy, stubbornness, bullheadedness, and following "my visions" that end ed up in a dead-end street, traveling all over, trying to "save the world," sometimes are not very easy to live with, even for myself. In fact, she must be on the verge of Sainthood, after living with me for all these years.
Not only is she the "Greatest Woman", but she is also the "Greatest Mother" for our Beloved Son. For example, it is part of her Thai Culture that for the first two years of a newborns life, the mother sleeps with her child, on a hard floor, for the first two years of their life. With this cultural practice, "crib death" was unknown.
And that was exactly what the Greatest Woman did. She slept on the floor with Tiger, next to our bed, on a blanket for two years. I tried, to be the "Greatest Man" and sleep together, with them, but the floor was just too hard for me. Exactly, on Tiger's 2nd birthday, she and Tiger joined me on the bed.
So today, I wish my wife, the Greatest Woman, a happy birthday and my heartfelt thanksgiving for all her love, understanding, patience, and compassion, she has and continues to unconditionally give to me, for so many years. May this be her very best year ever! That means it has to be my very best year ever, as well, as I can sometimes be a pain in the, whatever!
