LaurieWrites

Today It's Suebob's Birthday

Once upon a time in the land of Chicago, I was on a panel of women who blogged and did not concurrently have children. Suebob Davis was on that panel with me. 

I had never met her, but I knew of her, and oddly enough, I was a little intimidated by her. I don't know why. She's not particularly menacing in person. She doesn't carry a gun or any weapon, other than her brain, and I guess the stapler could be used as a projectile. She is a peace freak of sorts, and a smiley person, too. But regardless, I was intimidated. Sometimes I'll randomly decide that a person doesn't like me for no reason at all, because I am a special sort of paranoid when I get anxious. And that BlogHer, I was anxious. After a few years of flying happily under the blogging radar, I was on that panel and I was also a community keynote reader, so I was operating at a high level of Xanax need for pretty much the whole conference.

So when the lady who was moderating, who herself did not have children, asked the final question -- "Just what was it we ladies on the panel did with our lives, as we were not busy parenting?" -- my mind started racing. 

I blog! I, uh, take pictures! I work a mind-numbing, soul-sucking job that nonetheless helps people! I take care of my grandmother sometimes! I manage my life and work out and eat and go on vacation and screw around on the internet! I see my friends and my family and listen to music and take long walks in the suburbs!

Sue, however, wasn't having any of that. She calmly stated that she didn't feel that she needed to reel off a laundry list of activities to justify her existence. She lived a life, and it was good, and that was that. 

And then she stopped talking. She wasn't going to entertain it, which was then a much more foreign concept to me than it is now, due to the example of Sue and other women in my life, who have shown my by example and a well-placed "Oh God will you please just cut that OUT" as I reached my 40th year that just because someone asks a question, it doesn't mean I have to answer it. I do not -- I DO NOT -- have to justify my existence or my choices or myself.  That panel was the first time, but not the last, that she has said something and I've thought, "Damn. I need to be more like that." 

Time and months and years went on, and that panel turned into a community keynote that turned into a Twitter relationship that turned into hanging out at BlogHers and every year. I've been pleasantly surprised that this very well-regarded, powerful source for good in my blogging world has sought me out and wanted to spend time with me. That is no kind of false modesty, either. These events are zoos, yes, but they are also populated with hundreds of people, and the basic truth is that there are a lot of people there that we all want to see. They come alive from the internet for just a few days, like toys in an animated film, and then they go back in. You have to take what you can get where you can. 

And as I get older, I realize the honor it is for any human being to want to spend their limited time with any other one. Time is all we have that makes any nevermind, and when someone I respect and admire and find interesting chooses to use it up with me? I appreciate it, and I acknowledge it as a meaningful thing. 

Since then, Sue and I have hung out in New York and Chicago again, and this year we will spend some time together in San Diego, I'm sure. We sat together in a canyon in Ojai last fall, and one of the greatest days I've had, she drove me and Deb up (down? I fail geography) the coast to her house and then on to L.A. I got to see her adorable house and eat at her tacqueria that I would transport to DC in an instant, if I could. I got to meet Goldie, and her mom. It was a great day. She came here once, too, and Sarah and I met her for brunch on our turf, which was fun. 

Virtually, we have spent hours Gchatting about jobs and family and writing and just what on earth it is we're here to do. And there is, of course, always Twitter, for good or for ill. (Just please don't say the p-word.) 

I am lucky that she is my friend. 

But beyond the micro-confines of this particular one-on-one relationship, I find Sue worth celebrating for a very simple fact that goes far beyond me. And that is that she is always the one to see the good in other people. She gets pissed off, sure, at situations, mostly, and the occasional blowhard with a vuvuzela or what have you in her neighborhood. But when it comes to people she knows and cares about? Super forgiving. Ridiculously forgiving, and, most valuable: preemptively forgiving. Even that time I broke my phone and never answered and she texted "Fuck you!" to me so that was the first thing I saw when I turned the replacement back on? I knew it was only temporary. 

I admit it, there are times when I read stuff on the Internet and I think "Holy hell, what is that person's deal. Could they shut up already? OMFG." And that is unfailingly the moment where Sue will pipe up with a tweet to that person that offers some kind of kindness, a good word or a comment or a thoughtful detail about her life that acknowledges not only their current situation but in a broader sense, what is redeeming about them. And I'll think, why didn't I notice that first? What is she, some kind of friggin' saint, showing me up, as I sit here in my living room all judgmental and dark-hearted? 

No. It has nothing to do with me. It's just her. She sees the goodness. She sees the gold, and that is a remarkable quality. I don't always understand it, and I sure as hell don't always agree, but I always admire it.

Happy birthday, Suebob. I hope you enjoy the good words of people from around the internet about you today, and know that they couldn't be offered in more friendship, appreciation, kindness and love. We owe each other a 40/50 toast in San Diego, for sure. I thank you for everything you have done and said to make my world a better place, and I love you very much. 

##########################

Suebob's favorite charities right now are Write Girl (an amazing organization in L.A. that supports self-expression for young women, where I wish I was the director) and Planned Parenthood, which has obviously suffered major cuts in funding and support this year. I have set up a fund via my PayPal, and bloggers have already kicked in a few hundred dollars. When it is all done, I will be splitting the proceeds in half and donating equally to these organizations, taking care to make sure that the funds are diverted as closely as possible to her region.

If you would like to participate in this birthday gift for Sue, please leave a comment below, and I will send you my PayPal contact information. (I am documenting all donations, so there should be no worry about fund transfers to me for this purpose.) I'd like to finish this up by Wednesday of next week, so please get your messages to me by then. Thanks! 

Finally, Karen came up with this wonderful idea to celebrate Suebob's birthday. If you write a post too, please leave a link on her site as well. 

Sarah 38

I was talking to Mr. Lady in Texas a couple weeks ago and I told her that I'd jacked her birthday post idea for a few people last year and she was okay with it. I pretty much knew she would be but I wanted to really talk about why I write on December 17 (It's almost the 19th now, but I'm not on time for anything, as you know.) even though she didn't need me to explain because she's the type to get it when it most needs to be gotten.

She understood what I'd need to say -- and why I'd need to say it -- without me needing to tell her much about it. She knows firsthand the value of a person who carries you over soul-deep broken glass, just because you randomly met them one day at a blogging conference and they went on to change your life.

She's a lot like us, in that way and some others.

This year was hard and the words are erratic around here. But I need to tell you that when the Reverb 10 prompt that I didn't have time to properly answer told me to imagine I had five minutes to remember 2010 and after that the year would be gone from my memory forever I only had a few things that popped up immediately and it turned out that they mostly involved you.

I loved the M3 festival and I didn't care if anyone thought the music and/or I was/were stupid. It was the most fun I've had in any memories I can remember and it was mostly really that way because you were there. Everything is more fun with you but that was a special occasion. It reminded me of the best, maybe most stupid days of my life but in that way it was essential to remembering where and with whom I am most me, where I could forget the must-dos and the stress and strain. And yes I guess that involves drinking vodka and cranberry juice at 11 a.m. and spitting beer on people and getting ejected from concerts.

So be it. It's good to feel like the parts of yourself again that you've forgotten, even for a day, so you don't forget so easily again.

There were some other things. I obviously complain about Virginia a lot but even though the summer was kind of weird it was still nice to have you up the street for awhile.

This is supposed to be about you because it's for your birthday and I swear to God it is. It is more than maybe just gratitude that you were born so I could have fun. I should talk about John Oates now to divert from this unfortunate narcissism, right?

I told you today (two days ago now) that I needed divine intervention in another area of my life, but that is what was working when I sliced my finger in a door two years ago. You give and don't know you're doing it because you don't really know that the ways you do it are a big deal. You want the best for yourself and for the people you hold closest, in a very active and conscious way. You are the person I most look to outside of myself for clarity, and not in the sense that you figure everything out exactly to the letter. I just know that when I see you after it's been too long, which it pretty much always is, that it feels like a relief. Maybe Tom Kiefer or whatever paid hack who wrote that song should have said was that you don't know what you got until you see it again.

Also I kind of believe you when you tell me you'd punch someone for me, which is frightening and reassuring at the same time.

But none of that is really the most important part, not all the time anyway. What really is is that I love that when I threaten you with drinking part of your birthday present...

that you take that shit seriously and correct your aberrant behavior.

(I got one of each for myself, too. I am giving that way.)

I love you. Happy birthday (two days late.) (I mean it.) (Even-numbered years are supposed to be the best.) (So you have a good one coming.) (And I mean that too.)

 

Something New Under the Sun

I left my office today and won't go back until August, the exact whys of which I can't and won't explain but it's not very exciting anyway so it doesn't matter. It was more difficult than I thought it would be, beyond my genetic difficulty with clearing out spaces and recycling paper and dealing with the detritus of a couple of academic years. I am so bad at this. It is one of my least favorite things, how I hold on to places and people and things anyway - often way longer than I should, when I should take a break at least. I form attachments and have these feelings. It sucks.

Anyway, this has been a really hard year and I know the change is necessary and good even if it is weird and I don't like it even when I think I do. It is weird when my closest colleague, my non-biological brother and a notorious introvert who is not into displays of emotion, did the equivalent of whimpering outside of my door and said "I DON'T LIKE THIS."

Twice. Unheard of. Unnerving.

But then I left because eventually I got hungry and eventually you have to leave everywhere and there was melted cheese and chocolate and friends and wine where I was going, which wasn't a shabby incentive. On the way out, I got in my car and turned on this Courtyard Hounds cd, that as it turns out I love.

Here's where I out myself as a Dixie Chicks fan, if you haven't been paying attention for the past ten years. I am pretty much unfailingly rock and roll but that little bit that has always been country dies hard.

That is me in my car just before I left campus. Do I look like I'm going to throw up from nerves? Like I'm completely overwhelmed by options and alternatives and the threat of brokeness? No? I AM A FAKER. Total faker, I assure you.

Anyway, Emily and Martie have formed this side project. I have been a fan of the band for years but gained new respect for these two since since I saw Shut Up and Sing and realized that this enterprise, this living as musicians, this Dixie Chicks business? These sisters - gifted multi-instrumentalists and singer/songwriters - had taken their whole lives to build it. And those stupid country music fans who bulldozed their cds because of what Natalie Maines said could and would pry their career from their cold, dead hands.

And I say this as someone who has channeled Natalie Maines for confidence on more than a few occasions, which is a sort of strange story for another time.

The song that was on when I got in the car is called Something New Under the Sun and it was what I needed to hear just right then. It was clearly about a relationship, but I have no problem extrapolating and relating art to my own particular circumstance so it was enough for me.

Take a chance on me cause you know and I know we're on our way to something new under the sun.

Whatever is happening now is new, which sounds supremely stupid and obvious but it is and that's not always the case when routines go on and on for months that turn into years while it's like you weren't looking. I don't know what is going to happen at all but what I do know in these old intuitive bones is that whatever it is it is going to be better. As much as I'm nervous and afraid and all over the place, I know this for sure. As scary and financially unstable and bereft of any commitment to time and place as it is?

It is okay, and it is better. I'm sure I'll waver on this a frillion times a day, but for right now, I believe it. This is what I know -- or at least hope and pray -- to be true.

And if it's not may all of it not bite me in the ass too hard.

TK

Look, it's a video I took of absolutely terrible quality of you playing a song at Celia's coffee house!

Oh wait, no it's not. Lie. I can't get it to embed. It's just a picture of you at the only open mic I will allow myself to attend at this point in my life, solely because you play there on occasion.

You are one of my favorite people, someone from whom I've learned a lot about the measure of my words and a little bit about boundaries too.

I've been proud to play a tiny part in encouraging your musical efforts, because as you know I've spent a lot of time listening to dudes play guitar and it is the measure of your talent and of my healing ears that I can say very honestly that I would choose to listen to yours even if you weren't my friend.

And I'll go to an open mic night. On purpose. I just wanted to reinforce that point.

Selfishly, you give me hope that some good ones are still out there. I admire your family and the way you embrace your life and your home, your personal integrity and your spirit.

And although I will never, ever, EVER root for the Philadelphia Flyers or stop short of wishing them anything but a crushing loss against any team but the Pittsburgh Penguins, it is in your honor that I really usually hope the Eagles and the Phillies win even though I don't really care so much about football or baseball. I may even pull for them mentally a little bit. I figure it's the least I can do. Because it's a real friend from Philly who feels genuinely bad for you when the Capitals flame out in the playoffs, even if it is at the hands of that jackass Sidney Crosby (but if that shared loathing doesn't bond us I don't really know what could.)

Happy birthday, dude. I hope this year finds you living the dream even more clearly. You deserve everything good.   

Sarah.

On the day you were born I was threeish years old and I like to think that somehow I was rambling around in my toddler state and all of a sudden my little baby hands went like this towards Ohio.

\m/  \m/

Because I would find it very strange that I didn't have some kind of telepathy where you were concerned even then.

I think sometimes when you get older you think that you won't find friends like you found when you were younger. This is not to say that you will not find friends, because surely most of us will at all places along the path. But what is unusual is finding a friend who you feel like, if there were ever a place where you had met that person that they would have fit right into your life right into that spot, wherever it was or what was going on.

Like say you were drinking in a parking lot before a really dumb show, if you were ever inclined to do that kind of thing? Like that person would have been the person you'd most want there to do that stupid shit with you. Like that person would have been there anyway and if she had it would have been better. 

And maybe even for some of the smart things too. 

Exactly. 

 

Ha! 

The day I met you for real in person I sliced my finger almost in half in a door and then we ate prime rib sandwiches that we should go have again because they were very good. And I think you felt more sorry for me than you were inclined to laugh at me because I didn't feel stupid and that was very nice. I also recall feeling like I'd talked to you before although I hadn't and that pretty much sums the whole thing up.

So I could really stop this there. But why, when I don't have to? 

Oh, and I took this a couple of weeks later. This is the first one I have of you besides the giantess/Melissa/Devra picture. I totally forgot about it. Nice one. You see this?

And it turns out it can feel a little weird for some reason, when you're reasonably used to being cool and collected and stuff and just down with the enjoying of the people in general when all of a sudden you're thinking wow, who the hell are you? Because you're kind of teh awesome in tiny letters? 

It can feel a little weird while it also doesn't feel weird at all. 

Bloggers are weird.

Admit it - it was disorienting at first, like we'd been in some of the very same places although there was obviously no way that could have been true, and at the very least had come to some of the very same conclusions, wherever it was we'd been. Mirrors. Parallels. Echoes. Poetic crap like that.

I recall a lull in the BlogHer madness between the Shutter Sisters party and whatever drunk lobbyfest came after it (not that BlogHer is a drunk lobbyfest, if anyone else is actually reading this. I mean, there is wine and there are generally lobbies and sometimes the twain do meet, but BlogHer has changed my life in a very profound way that has nothing to do with alcohol. Case in point: I would not be writing this very thing I'm writing without it. I'd be writing about something entirely different and it would probably not be half as good. So the wine is just a big, fat bonus that I consider my prize for the rest of the year where I stare at the little white square of death and die of writer's block and feel inadequate as a blogger all by myself with my own wine and without a thousand of my closest friends. You think this is easy? Try it.)

ANYWAY we had gone back to your room so you could change your shoes, maybe, I don't know. And I said something and you said something like "No one thinks that usually except for me. Is that weird that we think the same thing about that?" And I said something like "Well, welcome to the new world order, bitches."

I'm curious to know what it was we were talking about, because it seemed like a profound thing in my memory, which maybe it wasn't. 

And I really didn't say that thing about the new world order. I really didn't. He would though. Jerk. : 

 

(Sorry to steal this from you. It's habit-forming, goodNESS.)

I probably just said "Yeah I usually think that too." And you said something like "Are you noticing that we think the same things a lot of the time. Are you sent here to toy with my brain?" (Not really. I made that last part up.) And then I really do recall saying "We'd probably just better get used to it."

And I think that's when we came to terms.

You understand this: 

 And this:

And this:
 

And other things also, too many to list. I think sometimes that we are the same person but then I really think that you're just the person I know who is most like me who isn't related to me, and in that I find a very real sense of comfort and relief that I never have to pretend to be interested in your stories. I am so happy that you were born and that I had a blog and that you finally had the good sense to locate it even if you didn't come to the community keynote and FIGURE IT OUT A YEAR EARLIER HELLO.

But then again I wasn't so sure what a goon squad was either until I really had a reason to find out. 

That's all water under bridges now and the important thing to focus on now is that if I had a friend fantasy team you'd be my first round pick for countless reasons both silly and profound that somehow make perfect sense to me, even the giblet parts. 

You are so much better than you know, even though I know you know you're fine. 

I love you to pieces. A Hot Metal Street of badass pieces. 

And I don't think any of it is weird anymore - just nice. 

Happy birthday.  

Heather.

I don't remember when we connected exactly but I know when I lost my gig writing about photography that it was because of you and also really because I blew deadlines but of course I blamed you even before I knew you because really, this blaming myself thing? Tiresome, right? 

So I was expecting greatness when you showed up, dammit. 

And when I realized it was really you - that you were inherently great and it didn't matter what pictures you took or what you wrote about or why or where - then it was just that you were immediately my friend that mattered. 

You were another amazing human being arisen from the beautiful mess of the Internet, the sort of person who, like all of the deepest friends I've found in this medium, I would have immediately liked in real life so really the fact that the computer was the initial matchmaker made no nevermind. It just made knowing you possible, whereas honestly, the odds of us meeting in real life otherwise, were slim to none. 

Maybe. We both kinda get around. 

Minutes after the above photo was taken (really, could someone have helped me to attend to my hair?) and hours after Obama accepted the nomination, we were walking through the streets of downtown Denver. And I, altitude-sick and exhausted, prat-falled straight off the curb, face-planted into the cement. Ugly. And that guy came out of the mist, literally, to help me up, and you were like, "Holy shit, you just conjured him up. You fall down, there's a dude stepping out of nowhere to pick you up." 

That never happens, or maybe almost never. We both know that. But it put a little bit of fun and funny into the road rash, and as much as I miss my Nikon from that week and as much as my knees have never been the same since they hit the street that night, I'm glad you were there if it had to be anyone. 

I'm sure I'd have met other cool people were it not for the computer, it's true, but they wouldn't be you. 

We share something very specific, a similar experience that the very vast majority of people don't and that is a way of looking at the world because of the way people look at us and the lens through which we have always seen ourselves. We share the experience of people taking our faces in their hands from when we were babies, literally and ostensibly to heal them. And you know and I know what that does to you, what kind of a person that contributes to turning you into. You'd no doubt describe it in some different words, and it wouldn't be a bad idea for me to hear them at some point. But I think, empathetically, I understand, at least the broad brush outline. 

When I think of you I think of long hair and a love of pictures and animals that I share, I think of a simultaneous constant engagement with and yet energetic search for a sense of origin and place that I relate to so deeply that it is occurring to me in this moment that it might be our deepest similarity, others notwithstanding. I I think of someone who knows California and loves Colorado and the Gulf Coast, a sharp contrast to this stubborn East Coaster. I think of someone who writes and shoots like a champ whose damn blog should be more widely read.

I think of someone who risks - for love, for life, for self, for sanity. I think of someone who knows how fucking funny this all really is - the bitter and the sweet, all mashed up together. And who not only knows this but lives it. 

And that is why, beyond any other similarity, I think we connect so very very well. It's why I'm the most glad that you're my friend. 

Robert T.

I am not in the place where my scanner is so it being your birthday and all I got some photos out of the albums and just used the iPhone and the ShakeIt app instead. 

It occurs to me that the scanner you were obsessed with was of the police variety and the kind I use wouldn't have made any sense to you at all. 

I like this image, though. You were overexposed in the bottom shot originally so there wasn't much to be done with that but that is the place and stance that I really remember you in most besides the front porch so it may as well stand. 

You would have been 88 years old today, which seems very young to me when I do the math. You've been dead since 1987 and that feels like such a long time that it seems that you should be ancient by now. When I first thought about calculating it I thought, wow, he'd probably be almost 100. Wrong, but I can see why I thought that. 

You were one of the most challenging people I've ever known but it was difficult not to appreciate some of the things that could be the most off-putting about you. One of the things I've inherited in a few different genetic ways is a struggle with the art of compromise and while I see how that can really bring me some problems what it also carries with it is a near-inability to back down from representing my own point of view when I know in my heart that I'm right not to do so. It's a trait that when flipped on its head and used for good is not such a terrible one to have, and I definitely try to flip it. You are a significant example of the fact that I do not come from wishy-washy people. I guess there are reasons why I usually speak my truth. 

There are things about your life that I wish had been easier not only because no one really needs an especially difficult life but also because I think it would have made life easier for everyone else too. And I really wish that your body had not been ravaged by disease quite so young - 65 is still young to die, to me - because I can see now from my adult vantage point that you were growing into being a grandfather, mellowing out a little, and that would have been the best time by far to have you around. I think you could have made a positive difference. I think you were finally genuinely enjoying yourself. 

But that is not what happened and it's only worth the few line of speculation and when I think about you I think about simple things for the most part, like food and the country and being a Marine and lottery tickets and a new car every two years. 

I think about how when you were on oxygen all the time and nearly on your last legs you came to the play in my junior year that was really a defining experience in my life and you were obviously genuinely proud to be there. And I remember how in spite of my teenaged angst making me a little embarrassed - because, like I said, you weren't quiet or halfway or tactful about much of anything - I was really happy and proud that you appreciated it. 

It's a good memory to have. 

And I hope it's okay with you but I also use you as my cautionary tale to really try not to drink bad beer, and I'm especially grateful for that unintentional life lesson (because if you knew how much it costs to drink good beer you would die again and talk about it loudly for hours.) I did not have one for you today, because I was out with some of my friends consuming sangria which is definitely what you would have called a sissy drink. But I definitely will tomorrow. 

Patrick - November 26

I'm late with these birthday posts. I'm late with life. I'll catch up this week - with the posts anyway.

This year we had the Thanksgiving holiday at the beach we usually go to in the summer, because it was your 50th birthday and it was what you wanted to do, and when other people started saying they'd come down too it kind of all just came together.

It worked out really well. It wasn't very warm at all but the sun was shining anyway, rather nonstop, and your kids were there and your brothers were there and to me those were the most important things, both because of this milestone birthday and because of the year it is otherwise.

I chose to go because of all the reasons I could have been anywhere else, including face down on a couch by myself (which in so many ways would have been fine this season, really, no hard feelings) you are really very important to me. And it seems like my reasoning anymore is fundamentally tied up in the question of what will I be sorry I missed the most? What will it make the most sense, looking back, to say I did? 

Showing up down south was in this case the answer to both of those questions.

And even though I wasn't excited about the seven-billion item dinner buffet on Thanksgiving and my back hurt so badly it was difficult to walk (seriously) and any number of the usual mindless complaints one can have about a day or a trip or a life, when you hugged me in the restaurant and thanked me for coming all that way for you and I said that I wouldn't have been anywhere else I knew I meant it long before I said it out loud.

I'll always be a little pissed at you for those days when you stumbled into the house at all hours and then the next day picked me up off the couch and pretended you were going to throw me down the very steep stairs in the way a youngest uncle will do, but not really. Because since then you asked me to stand up for your son 20 years ago, and you took me to a parking lot and taught me how to parallel park so I wouldn't fail my test for the third time. I've cried while I watched you graduate from college, and Rumours is still one of my favorite albums three decades after I laid on your bed and memorized the lyrics off of the record sleeve you taped to the wall. I'll never, ever forget you tearing up a little this summer over my tattoo, because we have loved and lost the same people. 

You have been my friend for a very long time and for that reason it was at the same time no big deal and also very important that I be there at the beach on your Thanksgiving birthday. I'm a fan of the easy decisions, particularly the ones that make things even clearer than they may have always been.

December 1

Last year I brought you Moose Munch and a green fleece jacket for your birthday before I left for California, where on your actual birthday as it happened I stood in the parking lot of a winery and cried and screamed into the phone at Mom because all of a sudden you were being transferred to a nursing home from the hospital where the assisted living had sent you the day after I left. 

You didn't know what Moose Munch was anymore but could still comprehend "original milk chocolate" and, more vaguely, your birthday.

A month plus a day later, just over the threshold into the new year, you died.It's crazy, really. One month we're talking popcorn and chocolate, and the next we're not talking about anything at all, because we can't.

Seriously? So weird.

It still sucks, the missing you part. I can see back now, to the photos and the videos I've got and the images in my head. I can comprehend how frail you were, how hard it had become to navigate the world, how there were gaps in comprehension and engagement that weren't there the birthday before, the one where a bunch of us went to lunch and you dove face first into your sundae when they didn't bring you a spoon. 

I know in large part that grief is selfish, but that's not anyone's fault, how it's felt, how it moves.

If we didn't love people so much it would have no origin or purpose. It's the constant push-pull, the crap reality of death.

I wish I believed in a situation that would even allow me to allude to things that people of faith allude to, like "birthdays in heaven," but I don't, and it's not even that on this count I'm that cynical or bitter. It's just that I don't really operate in that sphere. It's not something that feels genuine to me. Still, I honor the birthdays you were here and the 89 years total its been since you came to be a person.

Your birthday kicks off the holiday season for real, like it always has. It's Advent, right, the practice of waiting for someone new, for something new too, maybe, I don't know. I love it more than Christmas, really. It's one of the Catholic things I hold onto for some reason. There is nothing not beautiful about it, to my mind. It's so separate, to me, from theology - because it's the practice I love, not the reasons why, really. 

As part of its beginning and of your day itself, I drove towards water. I thought of you, but not the whole time, as much as I knew what day it was all day. I remembered just as much as I thought you'd want me too, if I could guess, and I ate a full fat dinner.

I love you more than I can explain to anyone but myself. I miss you so much it's sickening and for that reason these are things I will always do. I will try to write about it and to talk about it when it makes sense because I think it should be said, how much people can affect our lives for the good, so much that we can carry them with us for as long as we live.

These things about you are things I will always remember, as long as I can remember things.