It's Her Birthday

August 23^rd, Marty’s dad, Arty, was born in 1925, I think I have the year correct.  August 23^rd, Marty’s birthday twin, Ellen Elliot, was born, seven years ago.  August 23^rd, 1954, Marty Jean Watkins came into the world in Clovis, New Mexico.  

The world, at least for some of us, was irrevocably changed, mostly for the better.

It’s been about 13 weeks since Marty left us, I want to say left me but that’s not even close to accurate, she left a lot of us in May.

I’m not sure what to do with this day, I’m just not.  It’s sad, it’s okay, if’s fine 3.0.  I’m just not sure how this day is supposed to work anymore.

When Marty’s dad passed away in 2004 I know Marty dreaded that first August 23^rd when she wouldn’t be able to sing “Happy Birthday to Us” with her Dad.  The first stroke kept her from having to deal with that day.

I’ve talked to both Erin and Matt today and I think they feel the same way I do, a bit of confusion on how to do this day.  It’s sad, I mean real live sad, but somehow on Marty’s birthday, on this August 23^rd we can’t be washed in simple grief and sadness.  

Somehow I think we, I know Marty would have wanted, must “suck it up” and remember on this day the Marty that was, the Marty that made us laugh, that made us cry, that made us think, that made us love, that made us understand love, that made us have courage. 

The Marty that touched my soul.  

I think today of all days I want to remember sitting around the dinner (supper if you’re from the country like me) table talking with the kids and asking them about their day, asking them who they sat with at lunch, asking them what they learned.

I want to remember the little sticky note Marty gave me with an imprint of her lips on them, the sticky note I carried in my billfold for years to remind me who I was.

I want to remember sitting in a garage of a rental house in Lubbock Texas watching and smelling the rain as Marty and I fell in love.

I want to remember watching her ski down the slopes at Red River and Angel Fire.  I want to remember her pulling me out of a snow drift in Breckenridge Colorado.

I want to remember lying in bed with Marty, laughing about something completely stupid that no one else in the world would have thought that funny.  

I want to remember the encouragement, the advice, the ear she gave me when work seemed 

impossible.

I want to remember the way she cradled and loved our children.  I want to remember her working on a paper Mache shark for one of Matt’s projects.  I want to remember her working on a video for a little girl named Erin who was thinking about being a doctor.

I want to remember how she cried when we dropped off the kids at college, and how we felt a mutual pride that they were ready and maybe we helped with that.

I want to remember a woman who was broken by a deadly stroke who stood on a rehab staircase, raised her hands in celebration and shook her back side.

I want to remember a woman who held my hand tightly and looked me dead in the eyes and said I love you too many times to count.

There’s just so much there, so many amazing moments and things I think about every day when my heart allows my mind to go there.  So many years, so many good things, so many happy moments interspersed with the worst of all times.

On this day, on this day when it feels so sad, when the mind realizes the magnitude of the loss, I remember her smile and her laugh, both of which always did and always will fill me with an eternal happiness.

It's Marty's Birthday

Today is Marty’s 59^th birthday.  

Today we are nine years post diagnosis of her multiple sclerosis.  Today we are eight years past her ruptured aneurysm.  Today we are seven years past her last stroke.

In those years Marty has been in the hospital literally dozens of times, endured brain surgeries, countless indelicate procedures, taken way too many antibiotics and fought against death more times than I care to recount.

In those years Marty has lost her ability to care for herself, to walk, to drive, to work, to think clearly and independently.  In those years Marty’s life, our lives, our perspective and basic understanding of each other and the people around us has radically changed.

In those years Marty has seen her baby girl graduate from college, twice.  She has danced at her daughter’s wedding, seen the birth of three grandchildren and kissed each one as they were baptized.

In those years since the strokes Marty has seen both of her children grow, develop more independence and thrive in their own lives with their own families.

In those years Marty has touched her ailing mother and eventually buried her, and she let go of part of her history, her past.

In those years Marty has touched and affected the lives of countless strangers and friends who have come to know her in her “new normal”.  Marty has brought new people into our lives we would never have know otherwise and we are better for it and so are those new people.

In those years Marty has beaten the odds, she has survived an uncompromising disease and disability.  In those years Marty has exemplified Dylan Thomas’s thoughts about, “do not go gently into that good night.”  In her own inimitable fashion she has “raged against the dying of the light.”  In those years Marty has become the symbol of living through adversity.

In those tumultuous days, weeks, months and years since the first stroke, when no one thought she would live or come home Marty has felt pain, loneliness, fear, hopelessness and love.  Marty has seen the love of her family, she has felt the love of a husband, she has known the loyalty and steadfastness of her children.  

In the years since the events Marty has taken a rare and dangerous survival trek and because she chose to survive, because she did survive, she wins, she gets to know something many will never know, on this her birthday, she knows she is loved without pause and without condition.

It’s a really difficult trade, but sometimes you have no choice and you must search for victories.  

“And the greatest of these is love”.