This year, this month, my beautiful wife and my very best friend has had a milestone birthday. Turning into a new decade. And we’ve been celebrating it all month long with a series of intimate meals with family and friends. I’ve been thrilled to set it all up because in those moments the people Tina loves the most have been able to express to her just what she means to them, which is a lot, and she deserves every bit of their praise and more. But as I’ve been working behind the scenes on all this I realized that I had yet to share my own special thought.

So, Tina, here goes. I’ll try to get through this without blubbering …

The Velveteen Rabbit is a children's book written by Margery Williams in 1922. It’s the story of a stuffed toy’s longing to become real. The rabbit is given to a small boy on Christmas Eve who at first likes it very much but as more presents are opened soon gets caught up playing with other more modern and interesting mechanical toys. And so, Rabbit is soon forgotten and spends most of its time in the cupboard or in the corner on the nursery floor, not being thought of very often and made fun of by the more expensive toys. It’s at this low time that Rabbit has a very important conversation with the wisest and oldest toy in the nursery, the Skin Horse, and this is how it goes …

What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?" "Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real." "Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit. "Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt." "Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?" "It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

In one way or another I think the longing to “become real” is the story of us all. Sometimes it seems as though there are only two kinds of people born into this world. Those who tend to think too little of themselves, and those who are convinced they’re more important than they really are. I, without question, am a “think too little of myself” kind of person. That’s something I always need to be working on, and I’ll tell you right now it’s a problem I don’t have many real answers for, except for one.

When you finally find your home—that place where you know beyond a shadow of doubt that you are safe and accepted exactly as you are—like the Skin Horse said, that’s when you begin to become Real. That’s why home is the most important place in the world. I my case, home is both a place and a person. The person, Tina, is you, and the place is by your side.

Becoming Real didn’t happen all at once. It took a long time. And even though you haven’t aged a day, I look in the mirror and the person staring back at me is definitely worn, loose in the joints, and a bit shabby. But it doesn’t matter, because when you’re Real you can’t be ugly. And I’ve become Real because I’ve found my home. Home is wherever I’m with you. Thank you. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me.

And as for the rest of you, my one, only, and always wish for you is that you find your home. That you find the people whose love helps you become Real. And th