I was seventeen the first time I saw you. Too young to fully understand love, and yet, I think I loved you even then. Eleven years later, I walked down the aisle to marry you. Two years after that, we welcomed Emily into the world. Two years later, Jessica arrived.

Our lives have always been measured in numbers. The good ones are easy to hold onto—birthdays that come with cake and laughter, anniversaries that mark our growing years together, the milestones of parenthood, like the time Emily said “daddy” at seven months and your face lit up like a sunrise.

But there are other numbers, too. The darker ones. A 3-centimeter tumor in my colon. Ten days of waiting for biopsy results. Statistics that came back cold and unfeeling, predicting a future I couldn’t bear to face.

The diagnosis didn’t break me because of the pain or the fear of surgery—it broke me because of you. I saw the grief you tried to hide. The slump in your shoulders. The way you clenched my hand, silently remembering that your father had died from the same cancer. And in that moment, as I cried into the void of what-ifs, I thought: I must have done something extraordinary in another life to have been given you in this one.

In the days that followed, I retreated. I pulled away from you and the girls, thinking it would make things easier for you if the worst came to pass. I couldn’t bring myself to sit on the floor and play Hungry Hippos for the fifth time in a row. I couldn’t summon the energy to be present. But you—my steady, unshakable you—kept everything going. Cafe trips, bike rides, playgrounds. You made sure the girls laughed even as you carried the weight of worry alone.

I’m sorry for the distance. I thought love meant letting go early, softening the blow. But I know better now. Our love doesn’t fit neatly into any Ex-File. You never blamed me, never demanded explanations. You waited for me to come back, knowing I would. And I did. Because this isn’t just my battle. It’s ours.

A great marriage, I think, is like Jamie Oliver’s chocolate tart. The sweetness—the romance, the flowers, the surprises—is lovely, but what really matters is the base. Strong. Rock-solid. Never letting the good stuff seep away. You say you’re not romantic. I disagree. Because what you’ve given me this month—your steadiness, your devotion, your laughter in the dark—outshines any bouquet or candlelit dinner.

Sometimes I think cancer is hardest on the ones who love us. I have a target, a plan, a treatment course. You have hope. You also have a full-time job, a household to manage, and two small daughters who need you to be both mother and father when I’m not there. And still, you stay strong.

Emily and Jessica are so lucky to call you Dad. Of all the choices I’ve made in my life, choosing you was the best. Many men would have faltered. You didn’t. Because for you, leaving was never even an option.

Your humility is legendary. You make me laugh until my stomach aches, and yet you carry no ego. You’re the only man who could make me cry happy tears at two in the morning over nothing at all. And I’ve cried more happy tears in our marriage than sad ones—something I hold onto now more than ever.

I don’t know what the future holds. I hope, with every beat of my heart, that I will be here for decades more. But if life doesn’t give us that, I take comfort in knowing that our girls will have you. Who cares if you can’t braid a ponytail or remember the names of all Emily’s Barbies? Those things can be learned. What can’t be taught is the fierce, intuitive love you already give them every day.

And so I make you this promise: I will fight. I will fight with everything I have, because I refuse to let our numbers stop here. I see my 40th birthday three years from now. I see your 50th in nine. I see more anniversaries, more birthdays, more milestones.

Most of all, I see us—together with Emily and Jessica—building the life we dreamed of. Not defined by cancer, not defined by fear, but defined by love.

Always us. Always together.