November 5, 2024

Happy Birthday Annette!

This is now your third birthday, my love, that I am not celebrating with you. It’s a hard thing to miss someone so much. I miss your council and advice. I miss your curiosity, your passion for the things you valued. I miss negotiating with you. I miss your smile and your touch. I miss celebrating these special days with you. I miss you, Annette.

And yet your birthday is a great time to lean into these feelings and through them, to also feel so thankful for the gift of your birth and your life. Of how you enriched my life and brought so much joy, adventure, beauty and purpose into it. All of the things I love so much about you continue to inform my now different life. They are a part of who I am. It’s a beautiful life, Annette, because you are and always will be an integral part of it.

Today I celebrated your birthday by doing one of the things that made you feel most alive. I thought of you and talked with you as I completed a beautiful loop hike in Sedona, AZ. While hiking, I scattered some of your ashes in memory of our doing this hike together several years ago, one of our favorites in this area. You told me today those same words you said to me in Chamonix several months ago and which I wrote down in my letter to you on that special day. But today you added something more. You said simply that you are proud of me. There is nothing, Annette, more joyful than knowing this. Thank you.

Happy birthday my dear best friend,

With eternal love,

David