A Lovely Day to Celebrate: A Birthday Letter to My Wife

Celebrating Shalon’s birthday, 12 years of marriage, two sons, and a love story with a soundtrack all its own.

It still amazes me how it all came together.

I think about driving home to Mobile and stopping in Hattiesburg just to stand outside your dorm and talk. I remember loading up with the Bruhz to drive from Tougaloo to Hattiesburg on a Thursday night to hit the Hi-Hat. I would make my rounds, party hopping from one side of the club to the other, but somehow I always found my way back to you—being “mannish,” dancing behind you, and probably getting on your nerves.

Back then, even in a room full of people, you had your own Pretty Girl Rock. I couldn’t stay away.

We didn’t know it then, but those small moments were creating the soundtrack to something much bigger. Days became weeks, weeks became months, and months became years. Our paths diverged for a while, but by God’s design, they eventually converged again.

You and I became us.

Then us, multiplied by love, became McRae and Jaxon.

Of course, our equation has never been simple. Twelve years of marriage will introduce some variables—work, parenting, pressure, dreams, disappointments, responsibilities, and the growing pains that come with building a life together. But through it all, we have continued to solve for “wh(y).”

Our “why” has always been bigger than any difficult moment.

We keep bringing the equation back into balance through forgiveness, understanding, patience, prayer, laughter, and unconditional love. We may not always get it right the first time, but we keep doing the work. Most importantly, we keep choosing one another.

I sincerely hope that during our years together, I have given you more good days than bad, more Good Times than sad, and far more ups than downs. I hope I have created space for you to Come and Talk to Me—even when what you needed to say was difficult for me to hear.

I hope I have given you the Best of Me, not only through grand gestures, but through the ordinary moments that make a marriage real. You have certainly given me the best of you—as my wife, the mother of our sons, my partner, my friend, and the woman who continues to walk beside me through every season.

Every Labor Day weekend, I have the privilege of celebrating you twice.

I celebrate the day God brought you into this world, and I celebrate the day we stood before God and chose to build a life together.

As a DJ, I believe our story has a playlist, it has slow jams and club records, love songs and praise break, testimony, a few skips, plenty of repeats, and twelve years of music that only we fully understand. Through every change in rhythm, you have remained my favorite song.

You are still the pretty girl who can turn an ordinary moment into a Lovely Day. You are still my dance partner, even though you don’t like to dance. You are still the woman who can me laugh, challenge me, inspire me, and remind me what really matters.

And after all this time, I am still Crazy in Love with you.

Happy birthday, Shalon.

Happy 12th wedding anniversary to us.

I love you—always, in all ways.

Chuck