Happy Birthday, My Love

June 12.

You know what I was doing three days ago, sixty-two years back?

I was in my apartment, right here in Charleston, wearing my loudest Aloha shirt, playing Rachmaninoff on the stereo, and trying to look like a man who didn’t have a ring in his pocket.

You came for steak dinner. I had the Rachmaninoff going. I had the Portuguese Rosé Mateus I’d brought back from the Azores. I had a plan.

What I also had, for the first time since my brother’s lousy stunt at my mother’s funeral, was my mother’s wedding rings back. We’d gone to the Post Office together that morning, you and me. When I had them in my hand, I grabbed you right there and twirled you around. You knew what they were.

I didn’t say a word about what I was planning for that evening.

I don’t think you were too surprised.

We’d been dating “rather steadily” for about a year, as steadily as I could muster, being gone somewhere around the world more than I was home. But whenever I was home, you never turned me down. Good thing. I was lousy at handling rejection.

I considered you “My Girl.”

So that night: steak, Rachmaninoff, Mateus rosé. I got down on one knee and popped the question.

You said “yes!”

Thus began a wonderful journey. Over 61 years with you as My Girl. Uncle Sam dragged us all over the map in those years, and you never complained, not once, even when it meant leaving the place you loved. But we always came back to Charleston. Your Happy Place.

Ergo, MY happy place… and I never plan to leave.

But Dear God, I miss you so much.

You left ahead of me in October. Went to your joyful resting place without me. I pray I’ll join you when it’s time. My plan is to follow the lead of your cousin Bea — 102 years old, went out to play Bridge, won, came home, went to sleep, and didn’t wake up.

That’s the goal.

In the meantime, Sweetheart —

Happy Birthday.

I love you. ❤️❤️❤️

Don

Enuf.