Nine years ago today – January 12, 2016 – my beloved wife Gila and I had our first date. That evening upgraded my life forever.

We’d met on a dating app a few days earlier, exchanging some lovely messages which led us to plan a quick date over a cup of tea. That quick date easily outlasted the cup of tea and continued through many hours of subsequent walking around Manhattan well into the night, continuing a delightful conversation that neither of us wanted to end. Long story short, that conversation is still ongoing and still delightful.

I sketched this card today based on the first ever photo I ever took of Gila, on a subsequent date on January 28th, because sixteen days later things had clearly gotten serious enough between us that I needed a contact pic for her in my phone.