My Birthday Present from My Husband

Woke up this morning to this witty and heartfelt post from my husband.
Happy Birthday to Me!

The World's Most interesting Man Wishes He Was Her
by Roger Reynolds

On this day in 1975, a child was born in Daytona Beach, Florida. Upon entry into the world,she promptly looked around the hospital room and began organizing things alphabetically and by color.

During a 3rd grade field trip to the Kennedy Space Center, a NASA scientist heard her ask, "Are you sure you want to do it that way?"

And then she showed him how. After that, Tang became obsolete.

When she entered college, extra staff were assigned to manage her file and break it up into smaller components so as not to make the senior faculty feel inadeuqate.

That's what I've had to live with for 14 years.

Happy Birthday to the love of my life!

Aw, shucks. Thanks, hon'!

The Edge of Seventeen

It's that time of year when the blog musings center on my grief journey. Every year, it seems like we are busy with end-of-the-year school activities and the start of summer, planning vacations, and then (kablam)...it's almost July 9. Grief is funny. Grief is weird. I remember very early after Charlotte died, I watched the movie Rabbit Hole. There's an amazingly poignant scene where Nicole Kidman's character is talking with another woman who lost a child over 10 years before (played by Dianne Wiest). She talks about grief being like a brick in your pocket. It never goes away. Sometimes you can even forget it's there. But it comes back and makes its presence known from time to time. And (she says) "it's what you have of them." I probably did not fully realize then what a powerful and true analogy that is. As time goes on, our grief changes. Yet, it is always there on the edge of things. It sits in that pocket and sometimes makes itself known. This...

Bittersweet Sixteen

I think about Charlotte every single day. However, this time of year, I'm flooded with all kinds of memories as we commemorate the anniversary of her birth. This year feels like a bit of a milestone. Sixteen. If cancer had not taken her life back in 2010, I have a feeling I would be planning a massive birthday celebration this year. 16 always feels like a landmark year in someone's life. I have been thinking a great deal about the last birthday party we had for Charlotte in 2009. We didn't know it at the time, but we were halfway through her treatment journey. We had been through three major brain surgeries and a few rounds of inpatient chemotherapy. Treatments were not going well. In fact, right after her birthday, we would make the trip to Houston, Texas where we would settle in for about 10 weeks of proton beam radiation treatments and a new customized chemotherapy protocol. This was the unspoken "last chance option" to beat that aggressive brain tumor into ...

It's a (not quite) Jolly Holiday

I was sitting in a doctor's office waiting room a few weeks ago. While I waited, another patient came out into the reception area to make her next appointment. The receptionist offered a few dates, including one on a Saturday. The woman (I have no idea who she was; let's call her Maude) originally said yes to the Saturday date. Then the following conversation ensued: Maude: Wait! Is that Mother's Day weekend? Receptionist: Hmm. You know what? I'm not sure. When is Mother's Day? Maude: You don't know? Receptionist: (nervous laugh) Well, I guess I should know this.... Maude: Are you a mother? Receptionist: No. Maude: But...you have a mother, right? You should know these things! At this point, I was incensed with "Maude". This woman knew nothing about the receptionist. She could have recently lost a child. She could have been struggling with infertility. She could have had a mother who recently died. Or she could have a strained or just very compli...

I See What You Meme

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