My Best 3 Birthdays

Sean,

So, tomorrow is my birthday, and I really don't want to acknowledge it this year. The only benefit I can see is that I'm 1 year closer to being back with you. I think back on the last few years for the birthdays that you were there for, and I remember the first: you gave me a DVD of the Disney Sword in the Stone movie and a Ute's football helmet car-freshener. It was a great birthday. You came over, met my family, we all watched the Ute's season opener and had Cafe Rio. What a perfect way to spend the day with you (turns out you and I had many days of watching football and hanging around the house with each other, and they were truly some of my all-time favorites).

The year after that was the birthday I had 10 days after we were married, so it was special to me then (not to mention it was my 21st). It was sort of bittersweet because you had been in the hospital from your first RPLND and I think we ended up celebrating my birthday in the hospital (again with a Utes game on TV). I remember I was getting my name changed and my drivers license renewed all around that time, and it was a special birthday for me because it was my first birthday as Karen Martella, and as your wife.

The year after that you were just getting out of the hospital from the complications you had from your second RPLND surgery. You were getting over your blood clot, kidney failure, and bowel obstruction. I don't think we celebrated my birthday much that year, but I didn't mind, because I spent the day with you. If I had known that it was going to be the last birthday that I shared with you, I would have made sure it was more memorable, but in retrospect I would have done that with every single day that you and I were together. So even though I didn't know it would be our last together, I still treasure what it was.

This year....you're not with me, and I'm still Karen Martella, and I'm still your wife. I'm just missing my husband, that's all. My second half is gone, and somehow I still manage to turn 1 year older. (I just want to say that I always knew I'd have kids by the time I was 23...and for that matter I always had a feeling I'd have twins someday.) I just want you to know that none of my birthdays will ever be the same now that you're gone. Each year it will feel like half of me is missing....I'm just suck here left over with the half that seems to age instead of the half that is happy about everything. Maybe my aging half can learn to be happy again someday, but I'll always have half of what I did at each of my last birthdays, starting with this one tomorrow, and my heart aches for that loss. I miss you so much, and if I could wish you back by blowing out candles on a cake, I'd make that wish every year for the rest of my life until it came true.

So, tomorrow is another year down. I started that year with you but didn't get to finish it. This time I'll start it without you and that's how all the rest of them will be. I hate that-more than I hate natural sunlight in the house, more than I hate BYU, more than I hate the U's financial aid office, and even more than I hate spiders.

The only thing I want for my birthday, this year, and all of the rest from here on out, is to have my husband and best friend back. So while it doesn't seem like I'll get that present anytime soon, I'll keep making that wish on all of my candles on all of my birthday cakes.

I love you sweetheart, and I miss you very much. Thanks for the 3 amazing birthdays I got to spend with you, and for making them so special for me just by being there with me throughout the day.