A Birthday (in absentia)

On this very day, many many years ago, a young girl who was given the name of Dawn and would - not so many years ago - become my friend, my girlfriend, my best friend, my fiancé, and my wife was born. Unfortunately, Dawn is no longer a physical part of the corporeal world and no one who loved her can celebrate this day of her birth with her. Yet, despite Dawn's own ambivalence to people who celebrated "heavenly birthdays," it does seem necessary to me (and, perhaps, for me) to use this date on a calendar to remember my wife.

Memory, of course, is strange. Memories of important events get tied to other random events in some quantum entanglement that makes no sense and all the sense in the world at the same time. Dawn's birthdate, of course, is no different. March 30th literally is a week after spring has sprung. It is usually (but not this season) a few days before Major League Baseball opens the season. It is in the middle of March Madness - where Storrs Connecticut becomes the capital of the world. And every so often, the date happens to also be on Easter Sunday (but not since 1997 and not again until 2059 - but it was only two years ago that Easter happened to fall on the day after March 30th - the last time Dawn and I celebrated Easter). It is a time, with no pun intended, of a new dawn.

Of course, situations are never just good or just bad. Every day in a long-term sense will have good and bad memories, funny and morbid memories, happy and sad memories. Memories you want to remember but don't and memories you want to forget but can't. Certainly, circumstances over the past half-decade have cast a pall over Dawn's actual birthday - after all, the last two birthdays happened while Dawn was in the midst of fighting cancer. While I am certain I could find a silver lining in this black cloud - it is hard to pull out a good recent memory specifically of this date. 

While I certainly remember a fun time at a Japanese restaurant a decade ago (before I went all agog about a certain Japanese band) - the memories of Dawn are vivid and vibrant even if they are not specifically of the day of her birth. For, memories are fickle. And what gets remembered and why it gets remembered is (largely) unexplainable. The memories are of love and warmth and radiance and compassion and hope. A spirit that made me a better version of me. While the physical presence is no longer with us - the essence of Dawn is within all of us who were graced by her presence. I still attempt to live by her eternal ethos - "Those who need the most get the most."

And, with that, I give those reading the playlist to the second CD I made for Dawn.  A CD, that in reality, was about me. The wreckage and scars of my past - but with the great hope for Better Days to come because I fell into love with such a "dove" of a woman. All of which was true. All of which did happen. All of which did make me a better man. 

Dawn 2

If Dawn was here today, I may have upset her by being a stupid clod. Because, well, I am still often a stupid man. But - perhaps I would have given her great joy with flowers and candy and just giving her my presence and attention. Alas, I hope the memories of who Dawn was will give all of us some extra motivation to just do a little bit better than we did yesterday. And a little bit better tomorrow than we did today. Dawn would have appreciated that - and the world can use it.

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