Happy Birthday


Your birthday is coming up soon. You’re one of those unfortunate souls whose birthday falls just a couple of weeks before Christmas. When you told me those stories about how cheapskate friends and relatives would give you one present for both days I resolved that I would never do that. And I didn’t.

It took some doing, what with your controlling most of our finances and usually having the car. But I always managed to find some presents without your knowing about it, and sneak them to you, sometimes with help. I still laugh at that time Mom discussed one of your presents with me in Spanish so you wouldn’t know what we were talking about!

On the evening of your birthday we would dress in our best, and go to a restaurant I had picked for you. And I would figure out some way of sneaking your present to you so that it would be the biggest possible surprise. It always seemed to work. You’d do the same for me in the spring for my birthday.

The Christmas season was always a fun time. We’d go to our Sunday School Christmas party. We’d go shopping together for our various family members. There was that one day while we were out shopping that we found that sit-down Chinese place we’d never seen before, and we had a wonderful meal there, and when we came out it was snowing. There was something almost magical about that evening! More recently we had gotten into the custom of treating our date for your birthday as a chance to go to the city and look over the Christmas lights.

This is the second Christmas season since you left me. It’s hard to look at Christmas the same way any more, especially since the season is so linked in my mind to your birthday. Last year coming down with that kidney infection and going to the hospital with it distracted me, I guess. This year I think all the time about how I face the Christmas season—and each one from now on—by myself. Most of it—on Christmas itself I’ll be home with family, of course. But up until then I’ll be pretty much alone. I don’t even bother decorating the house. There’s nobody to see it.

I think about you every day, not just at this time of year. You’re still on my mind quite often. For a very long time my thoughts included a great deal of bitterness over the way you had treated me. You could be pretty abusive at times. Unlike me, you never had trouble keeping secrets and spending lots of money without my knowledge. It was pretty painful the way you up and decided to leave me only days after my fortieth birthday. It was hard lying by myself in the emergency room that night last year, after those times I had spent holding your hand for hours in that same room whenever you had to go.

I still remember all those things, but I don’t feel the bitterness over them that I did. Now when I think about you I wonder how you’re doing. Where do you live now? Where do you work? How has your health been? Are you living alone or with somebody else?

Whenever I eat out I think about how much I miss you. I’ve learned that I can’t stand eating at sit-down restaurants alone. So when I’m traveling or get tired of eating alone I go grab a sandwich, or check out the nearest Chinese buffet. I don’t feel so self-conscious eating by myself in places like that. It’s still not the same without you. Much as I like eating out, I still always feel sad when I do.

At night when I lie in bed is when it feels the loneliest. I read an article a couple of days ago about how many women find they have no sex drive at all. How I envy them! My own libido keeps me awake at night all too often. I suppose it’s just a manifestation of the more general loneliness and desire for intimacy. Whatever it is, I miss making love with you as much as I miss eating together. And about as often.

I pray for you every day. I try each day to devote morning prayer time to you and to each and every member of your family that I used to know. Even the ones who helped to break up our marriage. You don’t know how hopeful it makes me that I can pray for them now that God has helped me to let go of the bitterness and hatred I had harbored. The fact that he has helped me there tells me that eventually he’ll help me with those other feelings too.

It wasn’t God’s fault that you decided to abandon him and me both. But I still wonder why God let us get married, knowing in his infinite wisdom that you would do what you did to me and someday leave me. I wonder why he let this happen instead of granting my heart’s desire for a good marriage and family. I guess I won’t know in this lifetime.

The best I can figure is that somehow he used me to plant some seeds in your life and the lives of your family that will someday bear fruit. Maybe we were together for a while so that I could continue praying for all of you. If when I get to Heaven you and your folks meet me there, and my actions or prayers helped in some way it will have been worth any temporary sacrifices in this life.

When your birthday comes, I’m thinking about going to the city that evening to see the lights, like we used to do together. I’ll eat out (at the nearest Chinese place, of course) and see if there are any movies playing that I’d like to watch. It’ll be a regular evening out. But it still won’t be the same without you.

Happy birthday, wherever you are.