My Birthday

Birthdays, for at least the last 50 years or so, have not been a big deal to me. Also, for about two-thirds of her life Adri was half way across the country on my birthday. Indeed, the first time she was with me on my birthday (post-1990) was in 2014, at which point I was 50, so my birthday does not have strong associations to her and thus today is not really any harder than it was in past years.

I'm sure you're all relieved. 😉

The things I do associate with her on this day is that since the dawn of social media Adri always wanted to be the first to wish me a happy birthday, and thus would usually do so the day before. She might have got a bit of her competitiveness from me. Who can tell. 😉

Also, of course, there were usually the verbose cards she'd give me, and naturally  I'll miss those, but it's a much less painful memory for some reason, though not totally absent.

Here's a card from her to me from around 2016, just the third we'd had together. She always said such kind things to me in these cards.

"Thank you for being you and staying strong, yet gentle through everything."

I love her.