Scylla, I don’t usually post to your threads because, well… it’s like trying to add beauty to the sunset.
However, I will say that when I consider all you’ve written about her, I’ve rarely seen love expressed so honest and forthright, yet so tender and caring. You honor us simply by sharing it here.
So it’s a Scylla thread, I says to meself. I’ll open it up. Sure. I’ll have a good laugh. Fun for the whole family, that guy.
Instead, I hold my breath while reading the story of your daughter’s birth.
And all through the last paragraph and everyone’s subsequent posts, I remind myself againandagain, I’m not the sort of person who cries on message boards.
Congrats, Mrs. Scylla, on your special day. And, thank you, Scylla, for your words. You two have a special and blessed relationship.
Damn Scylla that is the most touching thing I have read anywherein a long time. It’s people like you that make me proud to be a member of this board, I’m gonna print that out and show it to a few of my friends.
Keith
Thank was frankly, terrific! Happy Birthday Mrs. Scylla, and congrats to you Scylla for snagging a great one!
Someday in the future I’m going to make untold millions in the stock market, the lottery, or after selling my blood plasma at $100/pint when I become the only B+ person left in the world.
Then I’m going to commence my Doper World Tour, travelling across the globe, meeting folks, and buying them dinner.
Remind me to put Scylla up near the top of the list, and not to complain when he orders the lobster.
Happy Birthday, Mrs. Scylla.
And, Scylla ,I’ll have you know I generally do not cry at the drop of a hat, but I cried when I read your post. Your adoration of your wife is touching and beautiful.
I’m glad you posted.
Zette
Beautiful post. You’re both so lucky.
Happy B-day Mrs. Scylla. I’m sure it doesn’t take a birthday to make you happy, though!!
-Tat
Happy Birthday to Mrs. Scylla 
It was a very touching post, bud. Do you have a brother who happens to be single? 
Best wishes - it’s so nice to see people actually have nice things to say about each other.
E.
Oh, Scylla, you are indeed one very lucky man and a great writer too. Even though you and Mrs. Scylla don’t know me, please extend my wishes for the Happiest of Birthdays to Mrs. Scylla.
The nurse who tried to get your wife going three hours after a cesarian, and a sister in law who says ‘let the baby burn’, would both have had to have their faces reattached after I was done with them. You’ve got more restraint than I do.
Good man, Scylla. And happy birthday, Mrs. Scylla!
Mrs. Scylla, here’s hoping your birthday is one you remember joyously for the rest of your life.
Scylla, my hat is off to you, sir, for both your exceptional narrative ability and your great good fortune.
I won’t go into a lot of detail (this is your thread and I’ll be even more damned if I try to horn in on something so touching and lovely!), Scylla, but as a 6’1", 180, double black belt with lots of experience under my belt who is married to a 5’2", 120 wife with dark hair, big brown eyes and the ability to melt steel and concrete with an irritated glance, I think I can relate in some small measure to your world view.
And here’s a Spider toast on this happy occasion: “To all the ones who weren’t as lucky.”
Happy Birthday, Mrs. Scylla!
Scylla, the way you described your wife is how I’d love someone to describe me someday - with complete and unflinching honesty and love. You are both lucky people, and it’s good to see that you stand together in the face of difficult childbirth, knocked over glasses, and evil sisters-in-law.
Do me a favor and track down a poem by Sharon Olds called True Love - I think you’ll find you and your wife in it. Let me know and I can email it to you.
Have a great celebration!
xxx,
mag
I too am one of the many that opened this simply because your name was on it, Scylla. Thought it would be my laugh for the day.
I thought you’d say something funny at the end. Then I read a simple “happy birthday.” That’s when I cried.
Happy Birthday, Mrs. Scylla. Mr. Scylla is one lucky, lucky man. 
I still remember, the first post I ever read of the SDMB had me rolling around on the ground. what thread was this? you guessed it, the Thread about your Evil Nazi Groundhogs. I hope your attempts were not futile, and you achieved your goal.
Scylla, You are one of the most cool posters I’ve ever read, and it’s more than pleasant to read your posts. Thanks for making me laugh 'till I cry.
Your wife seems to be the perfect female. Muscular, strong-willed, and she chooses her fights wisely. you are a lucky man for having her, and she is a lucky lady for having you.
I commend you both.
Adam Brown
Lack of signature, for this is a serious post.
That was the most touching thing I’ve read all day!! I’d wish you good luck with the rest of your marriage … however I"m SURE you DON"T need it
dammit, how did that sig appear like that
anyhow
it’s good to know that some marriages still succeed in this world today.
no sig this time to make up for that blunder last time.
Let me join everyone else with best wishes to Mrs. Scylla for her birthday. Both Mr. and Mrs. Scylla are lucky people.
fantastic post.
happy birthday and many more years to your wife. may you spend them all with her.
Oh mate…
gets tangled with emotion
You rock.
Your wife rocks.
You’re so in love it’s truly wonderful.
Thank you so much for sharing. It’s a truly heartwarming story. I hope we can all be so lucky.
You guys are so nice, it’s embarassing.
I’m printing this thread out, and giving it to the Mrs. (She’s in the bath with Baby now,)
She can read it when the baby’s asleep while I give her a backrub…
Then.
Heh, heh. heh. Yes. Sweetcheeks, I’m looking to get lucky on your birthday.
One more though:
When we got married and bought this farm it was 1994. That was a bad winter, with lots of snow.
I was still getting settled into my job, and couldn’t afford to miss work. I took the Wrangler leaving the Mrs. with a her little Dodge. She wasn’t going anywhere (BTW. She now has a Durango, but she refuses to drive if there is any snow.)
She spent the whole day in bored solitude. I was one of the few who showed up on that snowy day, and carried a huge workload, and an exhausting day. It was a stressful ride home in the snow, and by the time I got home I was emotionally and physically spent. My wife was of course, practically bouncing off the walls.
I sat down, exhausted with the paper to decompress while my wife hovered in mid-air, vibrating with energy and a need for human contact.
“How was it? How’s the snow? Was it bad? I bet it was. Do you think we’ll get out tomorrow…”
“Shhh. Leave me alone for a few minutes please.”
But, she kept talking, and I just stared at my newspaper.
“Say something,” she said. “You just can’t sit there and ignore me, after leaving me cooped up in this desolation all day. Say something.” She was bouncing up and down.
I stared intently at my paper.
“You talk to me. You say something. Don’t ignore me. Talk to me. What are you doing? How deep is the snow? WHen will it stop? What’s on TV tonight? Are you hungry?”
From me, silence.
“Oooooooooh, you better say something.”
Silence.
She reaches over and snaps the paper out of my hand with girlish energy, barking aloud laugh.
“Ha! Now what are you gonna do? You’re gonna have to talk to me now. Ha ha ha!”
I casmly reach into my briefcase and remove a magazine I purchased that day. Shielding it with my body I start to read. She can’t grab it.
“Don’t you read that magazine. You talk to me.”
I turn the page.
“This isn’t funny. You talk to me.”
Nothing.
She reaches over taps me on the head, laughs and runs away.
I do nothing.
She comes back in and sits at the table, and begins to stare at me intently, trying to catch my eye. The pressure of her gaze is immense, but I studiously ignore it. The tone of our little contest goes from lighthearted to dead serious.
Finally she can’t take the silence anymore.
“This isn’t fair. You can’t come home and ignore me like this. I’m your wife. You need to talk to me and pay me some attention.”
I start to feel bad. But, maybe it’s another ploy. I maintain silence.
She’s starting to cry a little bit.
“I’m so far from my family. I don’t know anybody. I didn’t marry you to be ignored. Say something!”
Turn the page.
"Goddammit!" she shouts. She picks up my car keys and hurtles them at (she later said,) the wall. She misses, and they hit me right on the top of my head.
“Oh!” She says.
I keep staring at my magazine, as a first a drop, then another, and then a thin steady stream of blood drips from my head onto the magazine. Doesn’t hurt at all.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
“Oh… Oh… Oh no!” my wife says. I’m suppressing a grin. I know a cut on the scalp will really bleed, though it’s rarely serious. As Monty Python says “'Tis only a flesh wound.”
“Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh no. You’re gonna kill me. Oh no! Oh God!” She runs screaming out of the room. I hear her feet pound up the stairs.
I get up and walk to the bathroom, grinning like a bloody maniac. I wipe my face, and apply pressure to the little tiny cut.
With ultra-sly stealth, I sneak up the stairs.
As I get to the top of the stairs, I hear my wife. She’s on the phone… to her mother. Crying.
“And, and, and, ::Sniff:: I killed him. I think I killed him… what? No. ::sniff:: I think he’s still ::sniff:: reading a magazine. What? No. I don’t think he’s really dead. I dunno.”
I sneak around to the corner, and leap out. “Arrrrrrrrr!” I yell.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” My wife screams. “He’s gonna kill me!” She throws the phone in the air, dives over the bed, rolls, and goes streaking out of the room and down the stairs.
I pick up the portable phone. My mother-in-law is near hysterical. “Ohmygod, ohmygod! Hello? Hello?”
“Hello. How are you?” I say to her in my slowest, calmest matter-of fact voice.
“What’s going on? What’s happening? Aren’t you bleeding? What did you do to my daughter?”
“No,” I say soothingly. “Everything’s fine. Just fine. Just fine. We’re just playing. Don’t worry. I have to go now.”
"Don’t you hang up! What’s going on? What did you do?"
“Well. Let me put it this way. Did you ever see **The Shining?”
“What?”
“Bye.” click.
I walk to the head of the stairs, and shout.
“Honey?” “I’m home!”