Undeniable

Once, when I was a boy, my Dad decorated the living room with streamers and balloons, invited several of my friends over to stay the night, and baked a cake. Written across the top in chocolate frosting between candles left over from some other event was “Happy Un-Birthday!”

This was the kind of man he had become, inventive and fun, perpetually tapped into an enthusiasm undaunted by working three jobs to keep us in food, warmth, and clothes. He plucked un-birthdays from thin air and made them real, as though this kind of thing was taking place in homes all across America. The memory of my other birthdays, the real ones, pale in comparison.

Last Saturday, I was instructed by my fiancé to stay in the bedroom, to not come out until she said so, and only then with my eyes closed. When I was allowed to open them, a black and white themed collection of gifts greeted me, complete with a tall vegan cake from Upper Crust, “Happy Un-Birthday Ty” neatly scrawled in black frosting, its outer edge ablaze with black candles.

This is the kind of lover Jeno has become, inventive and fun in the face of financial hardship, plucking one of my happiest memories from some past conversation and making it real again, bringing those cherished sensations back with the added layer of us, our passion for each other, our wide open future.

This was my second un-birthday and it makes me wonder just how lucky a human being can be.