Day 323
Today is the 23rd … or was the 23rd as I am writing this, once again, way too late for my own good. Somehow my days have turned on an axis and my bedtime of late has been of late … around 2:30-3:00 a.m. … exhausting just thinking about it.
Stupid is another word.
And it’s not like I’m solving world problems … I’m just doing what I normally do … but at ungodly hours!
Today Tim would have been 59 years old. Get out the birthday horns and … toot! Oh, he would have looked so handsome with graying hair. More handsome … if that could have been possible. He was an extremely attractive man. Dare I say … hunky?
On his birthday these past years we have done something to commemorate his being … trying not to focus on his death but rather on his life. We celebrate that he lived.
One of the years the kids and I went downtown to the Titanic exhibit at the museum. Tim would have liked that. Another year we were in Copenhagen; Tim would have liked that, too. And yet another year we spent the afternoon at the aquarium because Tim liked diving and the underwater world. He would have liked that, as well. We’ve picnicked in our favorite spot atop Daniel’s Park … we’ve eaten chicken … we’ve toasted the setting sun.
And today I spent seven hours tidying up end of the month/end of the year paperwork on the business that was once his baby. Not exactly a picnic or a stroll by the Little Mermaid statue … but it meant that his business that he worked so hard for and on … is still going. Oh, yeah, there have been better years … but we’re still going! So, get out the celebration horn and … toot! For me … because I picked up the pieces while being so shattered myself and forged ahead and learned this business and have kept it going for these past six and a half years.
People have asked me what it was like … and I liken it to not knowing how to swim but jumping off the high dive and just hoping there was water in the pool … knowing that a constant dog paddle or thrashing could keep my head above water. Better than no water at all and splatting on the bottom of an empty pool!
And our kids are great and grounded and wonderful … so, get out the congratulatory horns and … toot! I am so proud of them. Watching their dad die was so awful … and they both faced the ugly reality with such grace and strength.
I draw a guy … more or less a smiley face with wild hair, tongue sticking out, hands up by it’s non-existent chin. For birthdays I add a party hat to its head and a tooter horn in its mouth. It always makes me smile. I always loved those blow out horn things at kid birthday parties. Or, okay at adult birthday parties or New Year’s Eve.
In any case … I’m tooting my horn for keeping the business afloat … and I’ll toot it again for the kids for being so fabulous … and again for our wonderful Tim on this the 59th anniversary of his birth.
Loud and clear … toot!