Friday, March 3, 2006

My old man

My old man
Keeping away my blues
He’s my sunshine in the morning
He’s my fireworks at the end of the day...
"My Old Man," Joni Mitchell

When I was in high school, I met a tall, skinny, geeky guy. He was only seventeen, with pimples all over his face, and the awkwardly leggy look of a boy who'd grown a great deal in a short period of time. We became friends and spent much of a year playing chess together before he finally asked me out, to the senior prom. We went to colleges on opposite sides of Virginia, but he came to see me in his 280Z whenever he could, and we kept dating.

After college we got married, but less than a year later he was diagnosed with cancer. I was worried I'd lose him before we ever had much of a life together. But he managed to defeat it, despite one recurrence, and he's been cancer-free for over ten years. Even so, it's always at the back of my mind that I could have lost him a long time ago, so marking the passing of another year is always important to me.

Today, my DH is thirty-nine years old... not really an "old man," to be sure, but certainly a long, long way from the geeky seventeen-year-old boy I met in high school, and even a long way from the twenty-five-year-old who battled cancer without flinching. Though he has silver in his hair and a few lines around his eyes, he's more gorgeous than ever, and I love him as much as I did on the day I married him. Maybe even a little more.

Happy birthday, Don... here's to many more.

2 comments:

  1. Happy Birthday to your Vulcan! What a great post--made me smile.

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  2. Happy Birthday, Don.

    When we were in college (like you guys, different ones) my husband drove a 280ZX. It had a T-roof that leaked if we so much as drove by a sprinkler. Oh, the memories.

    There is so much to be thankful for, happy birthday, again.

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