My perfect, special day

Dec. 4 this year was the first anniversary of the death of our little girl cat Stachie.  Stachie of the black velvet fur and the perfect little Got Milk? mustache.  Stachie, who loved to nestle and around whom no shoestring was safe.  Stachie of the peepie-cheepie voice and the infinite appetite.  When she began to turn away from food, we knew something was terribly wrong, and the vet confirmed that her kidneys had failed.  We gave ourselves one more night to hold her and love her, and then said our good-byes.  The next day, Dec. 5, was my birthday, but Sweet Hubby and I didn't feel much like celebrating and spent the day instead quietly and in tears.

For years, SH used to give me an Anything I Want day for my birthday, bur for the past four or five years, those plans have been waylaid, by travel or illness or I was acting in a play or Stachie's death.  This year, even though I was feeling sweetly nostalgic about Stachie, I was also determined to celebrate myself and the fact of being alive.  Possible activities are restricted, of course, by COVID, so SH and I simply worked from the more limited menu.

The day started with breakfast in bed.  Actually, my day started at about 6am, but once SH was awake and functioning enough to make us a nice egg sandwich, I got back into bed to eat it.  Breakfast in bed is ridiculous, with all the crumbs and balancing of plates and what have you, and I can't imagine doing it more than about once a century, but I did like the idea of being able to say "For my birthday, my husband brought me breakfast in bed!"

It was a gorgeous, brisk, sunny day, so I followed breakfast with a 2 mile walk to a wetlands park.  SH drove there to join me and we strolled around looking at ducks and other duck-ish birds, holding hands (us, not the birds), talking about whatever.  I also got a call from my ex-sister-in-law, now a good friend and sometime traveling companion.  In fact, a lot of the day was spent fielding phone calls and texts and reading cards and emails.  My goodness but it's wonderful to have friends.

After the walk home, we played some Phase 10 (card game), had lunch, watched some Grey's Anatomy (our current series binge), and then came another highlight of the day.  My cuzzy Donna hosts a game gathering for a bunch of her friends every Saturday, and this day, not only had she coordinated everyone in the group to hold up a Happy Birthday sign, she had also constructed a Jeopardy board that was all about me me me.  Very cleverly done, and fun to play.  (Oddly enough, I don't think I won.)  My goodness but it's wonderful to have relatives.

SH got us pizzas and salad from our favorite place, and then we watched a movie of my choice, City Slickers, which he would probably never have watched on his own and which we've put into our Let Go Of stack.  Then, you know, some whoopee and then to sleep.  A perfect, special day.

One fun story from the day is that on birthday eve, I got a card from my best friend Bill in Los Angeles.  When I opened it, I had to laugh, because I had chosen the same card to send to him for his birthday in January.  But wait, there’s more.  Later that evening, I found a card SH had hidden in plain sight for me.  I opened it, and it was the same card.  I’m going to be laughing about that for a long time to come. 

It's an amazing thing to have been born at all, considering the odds.  That exact sperm had to reach that particular egg that particular time for me to be me.  Knocks me out to think of it.  Thanks, Mom and Dad, for that particular time.  I'm so very, very happy to be alive and to get to experience this complicated, challenging, amazing world.  Believe it or not, I'm even happy to have lived through the past four years, because they are going down in the books as one of the more colorful and controversial chapters in American history and I do hate to miss anything.