This may come as a shock to you, but my dad's birthday is not a national holiday. That's probably why you didn't know about it this weekend. Or maybe you did and you called him. If so, thanks. I'm sure he appreciated the reminder of growing one year older. In fact, he most likely did. Life's been pretty good to him lately. He's been running a lot, traveling, enjoying the beach, and probably loving the quiet life he's had in the past year since Maple and I are no longer able to show up every other weekend to wreak total havoc on his house and life.
The celebration of my dad's day of birth also happens to fall on my parent's wedding anniversary. How convenient is that? The story goes that he promised himself he wouldn't get married until he was the ripe ole age of twenty-four. After dumping my mom their sophomore year of college, she decided to finally forgive him after graduation. Unfortunately, right about that time he was taking off to travel Europe and my mom was running of to LA in persuit of her California dream girl life. Those midwestern kids are nothing if not adventurous, I suppose.
After returning from Europe the adventure continued and my dad somehow found himself living the big life. That's right. He was selling typewriters in Alabama. By some stroke of genius, he somehow convinced my mom to quit her LA job and join him for a rootin' tootin' good time in Huntsville, Alabama, where they could settle down in matrimonial bliss.
So, on my dad's 24th birthday they were married in my mom's hometown of Chicago during the biggest blizzard the Windy City had ever seen. Buried cars, snowed-in siblings, the whole nine yards. All that to make sure they were married as soon as possible on a date my dad would never be able to forget was his anniversary.
If January 28th wasn't already meaningful enough, last year my parents decided to up the ante and add the celebration of my mom's freedom from breast cancer. Not that they decided so much as that just happened to be the first available day the doctor's could schedule her surgery. Coincidence or not, the surgery was successful and my mom has made a full recovery. So much that I completely forgot about it this weekend when I called home. She's been such a trooper and has worked so hard to not let cancer define her or bring her down that it's easy for the rest of us to bury it in the past, right where it should be. Done. Not worth giving a second thought to. Something so evil isn't worthy of our attention. We are simply too busy celebrating the happy things. Like a wedding anniversary. And a birthday. And a new set of boobs.
Drink up and enjoy!
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