Nicole Brodeur: Do you recognize "amazing"?

This guy named Steven Knapp wrote last fall, asking me to write about his "amazing" wife.

I was immediately suspicious. And I wasn't alone." 'I love my wife,' " one friend grimaced. "Sounds like a headline from 'The Onion.' "

"Did he do something wrong?" another asked.

I combed through Knapp's e-mail for clues. Nothing.

With Mother's Day coming, I called Knapp: "Do you still feel this way?"

"More so every day."

I had to meet this guy.

At a coffee shop near Knapp's law office, we reviewed what he had written.

He called his wife, Theresa Goetz, a "silent hero who never toots her own horn."

So he was doing it for her.

At the time he wrote, Goetz was one in a group of women who had been honored by their alma mater, Washington State University, for their athletic accomplishments.

Theresa was a gifted swimmer who made the WSU swim team as a freshman. For two years, the women got hand-me-down sweats from the men's program.

But that changed with a court case that echoed Title IX there, making it possible for Goetz to receive an athletic scholarship for her last two years at WSU. She graduated with honors and went to law school at the University of Washington.

"If a male basketball player who was a top athlete graduated with a 3.96, it'd be all over the front page, right?" Knapp asked me. I couldn't argue.

But there's more, he said.

At 45, Goetz is an older mother. She had their son, Hunter, at age 41; their daughter, Seraphine, at 43. (My hat's off there).

Every day, she gets up at 5 a.m. and swims 2,000 yards. She packs everyone's lunch — his included — and they car pool to the kids' day care, then to work in downtown Seattle.

Every night, she pours a glass of red wine and cooks dinner from scratch, and from a menu she plans every week. (The other night it was chicken cacciatore.)

They clean up, get the kids to bed, watch a little TV (She loves "The Deadliest Catch") and hit the sack, then do it all over again the next day.

"She said that she's not deserving of any attention," Knapp told me. "But I think she's completely wrong. I think there are a lot of women who do amazing things. I just think she's at the top of the heap."

So I guess the headline here is that someone noticed how hard, and how special that is, and was moved to call me — the daughter of a woman who did the very same thing: Came from little and did Big Things, day in, day out. She still does.

So shame on me for being suspicious, on my friends for making cracks. Shame on any of us who take women like Goetz for granted.

"I don't think I'm more special than anyone else," she said Thursday. "But it's very sweet that Steven did what he did."

Mother's Day? Yes, of course. Buy her flowers, take her to brunch. Kiss her twice.

But come Monday, see the wonder of making it work.

"I'm such a lucky guy, I'm telling you," Knapp said.

I hear you. And thanks for noticing.

Nicole Brodeur's column appears Tuesday and Friday. Reach her at 206-464-2334 or nbrodeur@seattletimes.com.

Martinis and pedicures all around.