HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAN!

❤🧡💛💚💙💜💜💙💚💛🧡❤️

Tomorrow, 25th of May 2023 is my son’s 51st birthday.

Since I became housebound I have struggled to give him birthday recognition in the traditional ways. You know, making cakes, buying stupid cards and presents. I was never a shopaholic at the best of times so I would always try to give him what he actually needed rather than desperately search for something novel which he would probably never use. This year I have ordered a new swish office desk with built in filing cabinet and it should arrive tomorrow, with any luck. He needs it because his employer is sending him another computer. I have no idea why he needs more - his man-cave already looks like a cross between Spaghetti Junction and Silicon Valley!

Aside from somewhere to put his new equipment, I realise that what he really needs (and lacks the most) is recognition for everything he is, does and has become.

He is the most patient, thoughtful and kind person I have ever known. He isn’t Mr. Perfect by any means, he has his limits like all of us. He can get cross, indignant and dish as good as he gets. He has wit, wisdom and wackiness. He has far too many talents and skills to list. He acquires new ones all the time.
He never, ever panics.
Which I find absolutely amazing.

If you saw what he does for me you would be impressed. I am not the easiest person, especially recently. I find disability and aging bloody infuriating, to be honest! I channel my energy into researching and writing. My son lets me get on with it uninterrupted. It is the little things that matter….. like opening the window so that I can hear the birdsong or making me a drink when I am barely aware that 3 hours have passed, only marked by the constant tap of my keyboard. When I have a computer problem he fixes it - while I panic (you know, that thing he never does!)

My son is one of those computer nerds who lives in his man-cave, doesn’t care much about appearances, occasionally plinks away on his guitar or beats his drum, but mostly he does inexplicable things with code.

Don’t ask….. it is Vogon poetry to me.
I hear him in online meetings with other Vogon poets, usually in the wee small hours. His friends and employers are in the USA or Canada.

He has been the most important being in my world for 51 years tomorrow.

I wish I could express how much I love him, but I don’t want to embarrass him - so I wrote it in this post because I am pretty certain that he never looks at Substack!

❤🧡💛💚💙💜💜💙💚💛🧡❤️❤🧡💛💚💙💜💜💙💚💛🧡❤️