So here you are and here we are all these years later … today is your 64th birthday! When we met, we were both 21. I looked up from my poetry anthology and cardboard bowl of French fries in the Rhode Island College cafeteria and you were standing there with one of my best friends. She introduced us and I was astonished to feel a bolt of lightning strike. You were polite and warm, pretending not to notice the flash of light.
We grew up together, battling our own insecurities, finding our way. We married. We moved. We earned degrees. We moved again. We brought up our fabulous girls. And we were good for each other as we are now. You with your stores of common sense and me with the crazy optimism that, in the end, has served us both well.
You have been everything I wanted in a partner and the best father imaginable for Eliza and Diana. Your talents and preoccupations have been passed on to them – music, language, history, visual art. Beyond that you have given them – and me- so many lessons in kindness that our spirits have grown just by knowing you and your generosity.
And today – crossing another temporal threshold – I rejoice in you and in my hopeful way look forward to the coming decades spent together. Happy Birthday, Darling.
