(This is Jeff, and I’m hijacking this blog for a moment. Not that you wouldn’t have been able to tell that pretty quickly…)

The picture of Hillary above might be my favorite photo of her ever. It’s the moment she first saw Lacey. Sounds strange, since she’s in scrubs, hooked up to an IV, has a cannula in her nose and is pretty doped up. But it’s her face, and the look in her eyes. I’ve seen that look a lot over the 26 (!) years we’ve known each other, but I think this the is one of the few times I’ve ever caught it on camera.

She has the deepest of love in her eyes for her new daughter, and the most gentle touch as she’s reaching out to touch her for the first time. It just gets me. This is the Hillary I know.

Tomorrow is her birthday, Sunday is Mother’s Day, and on May 20 we celebrate our 20th (!) anniversary. She’s not going to like it, but I just wanted to take a brief moment to publicly celebrate my wife. (You know what they say about asking for forgiveness instead of permission.)

Hillary has been through a lot. She has lived through the sudden passing of her mother. The “long goodbye” and passing of her dad from Alzheimer’s Disease. The  birth of a son with an unexpected and rare genetic disorder. And thirteen years later the birth of a beautiful little girl with the same.

Ordinary people have been broken by much less than this. I’ve seen her pain, but she has never been broken. She is a fierce fighter, because she knows that Bennett and Lacey, and I, need her. She has supernatural and unconditional love for us. And she has extraordinary compassion and love for practically everyone she comes into contact with.

I hope you’ll say a prayer that she can find the time and energy to write on this blog, because her story is incredible and deserves to be told. Of course, she’ll tell you it’s our story, or the story of God’s path for her and us.

But that’s merely semantics. I’m just thankful to be part of the same story as Hillary.