birthday

Today is Daddy's 73rd birthday. In November, he was in such very bad health, we didn't know if he would make it through the end of the year, so I didn't wait to give him a Christmas present. I wanted to do something different, something that would live on for a long time. At the beginning of December, I went to the National Arbor Day Foundation and ordered something special for him, something that would live on and help sustain new life as well. In "honor of Harvey Goodwin Smith" and his "72 years of life on this planet!", his "one-and-only, ever-lovin' daughter" had seventy-two young trees planted in a national forest (in Michigan), trees needed for nesting by endangered birds. (You, too, can honor a loved one by visiting the site http://arborday.org/join/tictim/index.cfm .) I received the certificate within a week, framed it, and made a special trip to deliver the gift to him. And I've been making special trips to Beaufort almost every week since.

Where was I? Oh, yes. Today is my father's 73rd birthday. I went to Beaufort to have dinner with him and the family, in honor of the occasion, sans birthday card. So later, as we're about to have cake and he is opening the cards from his sister and his youngest son, I said "I'm sorry, Daddy, but I don't have a birthday card for you." He raised his yellowed face so he could look right at me and said, "Baby, every day that you're alive is a birthday card for me."

I'll never forget those words.