How Do You Write About the Absolute Best Person?

Nobody else even comes close.

Today I’m giving you something a bit different. Maybe you opened this week’s newsletter hoping for something related to politics, or eager to see what piece of public policy is really, really irritating me at the moment, or curious about the information I wish more people knew and/or cared about. There’s a place for all of those topics, and an audience for them as well (thanks for being here), but that’s not what you’re getting this week.

Today, I want to tell you about the best person I know.

It’s probably easier to tell you about people that annoy me. I like people! My life’s work revolves around people! I would even go so far as to agree that we each contain a spark of the divine (as Quakers like to say, ‘that which is of God in us’). But that doesn’t mean I think most folks live up to that divine potential. I find myself disappointed in the lack of compassion around me, in the wasted potential for love and hope and positive impact, more often than I’d like. But today I’m talking about someone who is none of that.

When I met my wife, I was only eighteen years old. I had grown up overseas in Asia, and upon returning to the United States for college I was more than a little bit lost. The plan was for me to get a degree in Psychology and go into the mental health world, but I just had the vaguest idea of what that career path actually entailed. I went to an expensive private school with a pretty good psych program. I made lots of friends, ate lots of Taco Bell, spent lots of time online, and had a really great few months. What I did not do, however, was go to class. By Thanksgiving of that year, I was asked to leave.

I moved back home with my family, several states away, and that was a pretty low point in my life. When I met Kellie in a chat room online, I don’t know what I was looking for. Probably mostly someone who would laugh at my dumb jokes? I didn’t know anything about relationships or even much about myself. But spending those few minutes chatting with her felt like turning on a lightbulb in some dark corner of my mind—it felt somehow perfect, somehow just…right.

So we talked. And when I tell people that Kellie and I met online, I think they get an image in their heads of some dating app, or of endlessly scrolling texts. But this was early 1996, and just because we met online doesn’t mean it stayed that way. We started talking on the phone that first night, and those calls became a problem pretty quickly. Not because we were talking, but because of how much long-distance calls cost in 1996. Because right away, I couldn’t stand to not hear her voice for all those hours a day. Talking with Kellie became the most important thing to me, and even now (29 years later) it’s still one of my favorite things.

Let me tell you a little bit about Kellie:

She is kind, and truly cares about people. I know it’s easy to say that about lots of those you know, but when I say it about her, I actually mean it. Kellie would rather spend all her energy caring about other folks than spend any of that energy on her own needs. I’ve never met anyone who loves giving the perfect gift more than she does—when she’s had close friends in her life, she has spent endless hours making lists and plans about how to honor them and make them feel special on birthdays and holidays, or just random days in-between.

She is compassionate. Kellie believes that we don’t all have the same level of opportunities given to us, and her passion for social justice is endlessly inspiring to me. Without her in my life, I would never have developed that passion for myself. Kellie wants others to have a chance to do better, to be happy, to be able to move forward, and that is something that’s rubbed off on me. She has taught me so much about history and politics and other things that I didn’t have a clue about before her.

She would rather feel uncomfortable and awkward and yet still help someone else through a rough patch in their lives, and that selflessness is a unique quality. I haven’t met many people who are willing to put others ahead of themselves in that way. She is so inspiring, and so giving of herself. We should all aspire to be more like Kellie when resources need to be allocated (because she’ll put herself last).

She has a childlike sense of wonder about so many things—I’m endlessly drawn to her joy for Christmas, for Disney movies, for 80s pop culture, for flowers and other manifestations of the beauty in this world. I’ve mentioned here before how much cynicism and bitterness upset and even anger me. I think that the easiest way to trigger me is probably to say that everything is horrible and nothing will ever get better. Exposure to Kellie is the antidote to cynicism about the universe, and is probably one of my favorite aspects of who she is. She believes in the potential for positive societal and structural change, on a deep philosophical level, and that matters so much to me.

That said, one of my biggest downfalls has has always been my willingness to take others and their perspectives at face value. I have put myself and others into dangerous situations throughout my life by trusting people when I should have exercised a little bit of caution. I’ll pick up a hitchhiker, I’ll loan a stranger money to get their car towed, I’ll help find your lost dog (or child), and I’ll try to rescue you because you say you need rescuing. Kellie has been a balancing force to my endless optimism related to human beings, and that has kept me safer and kept us (mostly) able to pay our bills rather than giving away all our cash. Kellie is hopeful about the world and careful/pragmatic about people and their motives, and I need that in my life. I think we all do. She keeps me thinking about realistic outcomes when I want to ignore them.

Kellie loves her clients and her students. All of us social workers should care about the folks we work with, and many of us do! But Kellie truly goes far out of her way to make sure that their needs are met, and her clinical work with them has helped them move through some incredibly challenging times. Kellie’s clients are an incredibly diverse group. She works with those in the LGBTQ+ community (especially transgender folks), and helps them value themselves in spite of all the widespread hatred they face in today’s climate. She works with older adults, and makes them feel seen and valued, even if they’ve been left behind as they’ve aged. She works with teens and adolescents, and helps them figure out who they are and what they care about. She works with college students, and helps them clarify their values and find a path forward. She works with parents, with neurodivergent folks, with those who have suffered enormous losses and experienced trauma beyond belief. And she also teaches both undergraduate and graduate students who are aspiring to become social workers! Through all this work, she gives of herself and her life experiences and knowledge. She is such a steady, inspiring, compassionate force in the lives of those who encounter her professionally. As a fellow educator and fellow social worker, I want to be her when I grow up.

As I said a minute ago, Kellie makes sure we are able to pay our bills. Beyond that, she makes sure they actually get paid. I think those are two different things, and that’s worth noting! She has always kept track of due dates and minimum payments and has been far more organized than me when it comes to unimportant things like making sure our water and electricity doesn’t get shut off. Here’s my favorite traumatic story about this quality: A few years back, Kellie was in the midst of a medical crisis. We knew she needed to go to the emergency room, and that she was very, very ill. We eventually found out that she had cancer and needed surgery, which is its own story. After we’d gone to the ER, they told us that she really should have gone via ambulance (it was that dire). But the point of this story is that Kellie didn’t let me take her to the hospital until after she had gone through all of our bills and payments due and written them all out for me, which took a couple of hours. She was determined to make sure to get them out of her head because she was sure she was dying and didn’t want myself and the dogs to lose the house and neglect all our bills after she was gone. Nobody but her would have prioritized everyone she cared about over her own life. That’s Kellie.

Kellie and I have worked together across a lot of different contexts: political campaigns, other volunteering opportunities, and more than ten years at a community mental health agency. In all of those environments, we have both been told dozens and dozens of times by well-meaning people, “I can’t believe you guys work together—I could never do that with my partner, we’d kill each other!” And our answer has always been the same: we would always, always, rather be sharing the same struggles, no matter the context. It’s easy to say that your partner is your best friend, but for Kellie and I it’s actually accurate. It’s hard for us both to understand the perspective that you want to share your life with someone else but don’t actually like each other very much. That’s not the case for us. Kellie is the best, and I’m far happier when I’m with her than when I’m not.

Kellie is a badass. I know that it may seem that she’s all touchy-feely, but she’s much tougher and capable of taking care of herself than you think. She’s also the Doc Marten-wearing chick who was cool enough to work at a record store (and also a bookstore, which is even cooler). She met Marilyn Manson before he was a huge thing! She’s had some truly great life experiences, like spending time in Japan and marching in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Kellie is reliable and brave and adorable.

Kellie’s so organized, she leaves me in awe sometimes. Maybe you don’t know this about us, but I would probably wear the same clothes until they literally fell into pieces. She makes sure we have laundry soap and food and toilet paper and underwear that are actually wearable. She keeps this household functioning as smoothly as it can, given our wild schedules. If I didn’t have her, I’d be a lot hungrier and smellier. This skillset is something that I am very lacking in, but she keeps us on track.

Kellie is forgiving. As much as I love and trust people, if someone has proven to ignore my boundaries or has broken my heart, it is really hard for me to find it in myself to mend that relationship. I’m far from vindictive, and never want to close the door on relationships, but I have a very hard time trusting them in the same way after something like that happens. Kellie has the ability to love people and keep on loving them, even if they don’t love her anymore. I’m forever shocked at how kind and caring she can be in the aftermath of a breach of trust, and hope I keep on learning from her and getting better at forgiveness myself.

Writing these words, I’m realizing that I could easily keep going for a few more hours. Kellie is absolutely my hero (and should be yours). Today is her birthday, and I just wanted the rest of the world to know how incredible a person she truly is. The universe would be a darker place without her in it. This is her birthday month, and should really be a national holiday, honestly.

Kellie should win Time’s “Person of the Year” Award. Plus the Nobel Peace Prize, while she’s at it. She is the very best person in the world, and that’s why I wrote this piece. If you know her, tell her hi and that you love her today. I’m very fortunate to have gotten to share 29 years with her, so far. And if you don’t know her, you should wonder where she’s been all your life. She’s that awesome.

See you next week.