A Love Letter to My Wife's Laugh

I've been married to Simone for twenty-two years, and I want to write about her laugh.

It's not a delicate laugh. It's a loud, sudden, full-body laugh that makes strangers in restaurants turn around. When something really gets her, she snorts, and then laughs harder because she snorted, and then she has to hold onto the table.

I heard it for the first time across a crowded room at a friend's party in 2001, and I walked straight toward it. I've spent every day since trying to make it happen. Bad puns. Silly voices. Falling over the dog on purpose.

Our kids have it now. All three of them. When the four of them get going at the dinner table, the neighbors can probably hear. It's the best sound in my life. I wanted to write it down, so I never forget how lucky I am.