March 13th

There are few days anymore where I know what Steve and I would be doing if he were alive. The most I can figure any given week would be his normal work schedule: drive up to DC on Sunday night around nine PM and drive home on Thursday night getting home around eight PM. If a Packer game is on I can bet we'd be home, Steve would have cooked a big spread, and we'd watch the game. Outside of that I have to lean on major holidays like Christmas, birthdays, Super Bowl Sunday.

Today is a birthday. It's my father's seventy-sixth birthday and the day is gorgeous. We'd have driven out to dad's house in the convertible with the top down, cause it's just that warm out, and Stevie would have cooked something special. Matter of fact, this may have even been the first top-down-on-the-convertible day for the year.

Last year was a big birthday for dad, seventy-five. We managed to throw a surprise party with guests coming in all the way from Florida and North Carolina. Steve and I had wanted to get his band over to dad's house to play a personal birthday gig for him. I'm sorry we never got to do that; when Steve died the band had never played anywhere outside practice. Instead, Steve had to be in Seattle for Microsoft training for three weeks. Steve hated being away for dad's landmark birthday but we knew postponing that training could have put a serious crimp in his career over the next year. We didn't know Steve had a ticking time bomb in his chest with a countdown remaining of only four months.

Dad's health has been bad the last few years. Matter of fact, Steve and I thought there was a real possibility that dad wouldn't make it to his seventy-sixth birthday. Which made Steve not being here for the landmark year even more difficult. I know that Steve would have made as big a deal of this birthday as possible to make up for having missed last year's. This year, maybe, he would have even gotten the band to come out and play. As it turns out, today would have been a gorgeous day for it.

There are few days anymore where I can walk this earth and have any certainty of where my husband would be and what he'd be doing if he were still walking the earth. So please excuse me while I cry into my coffee trying to create happy pictures of what might have been.