His Birthday

 

That picture was taken three years ago today on Glen's birthday during the pandemic. We joined Jessie and Vergil and the boys down near Eastpoint at a little hidden beach that was perfect for the children because there was such shallow water. A fishing pole was brought because there is no ocean that man goes to without taking a fishing pole. August was four, Levon was still a little one, and we had a sweet day, eating a picnic and soaking in the tannin-stained water, doing a little fishing, just being happy that it was Boppy's birthday. 

I love that picture. The love that shines on the face of my husband as he looks at August learning to fish, his happiness at being at the beach with a daughter, her children, her husband. It was one of those days where nothing spectacular happened. We celebrated a birthday. A baby went naked. Fishing happened. 
Sweetness abounded. 

Today was like that too, I think. A different daughter, different grandchildren, a river instead of a bay, but there was a picnic, there was a cake, there was sweetness. 

It took us half the day to get organized and on our way to the Wacissa. We wanted to get our sandwiches from the Hilltop and Lily needed to get gas and so Glen and I drove to the Hilltop with Maggie to order our food and sit on the old pew that serves as a waiting area, until our name was called and we paid for our lunches and drove to the river. We had a good conversation with Magnolia. We talked about the first things we remembered from when we were children and when we asked Maggie what the first thing she remembered was she said, "I don't remember!" But then she told us a story about running, holding cucumbers, and eating those cucumbers and it was a good story and sounded like a good memory. 

The river wasn't so crowded today and mostly people seemed to be behaving themselves. A little bitty gator was swimming in the duck weed but no one was disturbed in the least by it. We arranged our chairs and our umbrella and the cooler and our food and we swam for awhile and then we ate and then we sat and talked and then we swam some more and then we had cake. I took a picture of Mr. Moon holding that cake while we sang but I bet he'd say that he hates it and doesn't want me to post it so I just won't. Trust me- both he and the cake were beautiful. 

I thought about taking pictures of the kids so many times but felt so lazy and content that I just didn't. Mr. Moon brought the MeeMaw and PawPaw folding rocking chairs for our rocking pleasure and they are just too comfortable to want to get out of for anything but jumping into the water. 

By the time we gathered ourselves together to come home, it was after four and I still had things to do here like punch down my sourdough and pick tomatoes and unload the dishwasher and write Glen's card. I've done all of that now and given him his (unwrapped) presents and he likes his towels all right and he'll try on his new clothes to check for fit and comfort and I'm about to make what he wants for his birthday dinner which is crab legs. We'll have those and bread and sliced tomatoes and cucumbers and avocados and that will be plenty. 

Oh! And prune cake. As always, it is delicious. Gibson and Owen liked it, as did their mama, but Maggie has decided that she does not like nuts and besides that, it smelled like carrot cake and she doesn't like carrot cake anymore either. 
So we got her a Kit-Kat bar at the Hilltop instead and she was happy with that. 

I told Glen that I had gotten so many beautiful compliments about his table from yesterday's post and so I read them to him on our way home from the Wacissa. He was so pleased. Thank all of you who commented. I could tell that they all meant a great deal to him. I have talked about so many of you to him that he, too, feels as if he knows some of you. I love that. 

I love him. As I said in the card today, I am very, very proud of myself. Yes- I am proud of myself for realizing what a good man he was when I met him even though I had not known very many of that rare breed in my life. 

I feel very emotional this evening. Birthdays will do that to you. They are a concrete reminder of the years slipping by and no matter how much we all want to say that age is nothing but a number, we all know that it is more than that. 

When I met Mr. Moon he was twenty-nine, just as I was. Today he turned sixty-nine, just as I will in a month minus one day. 
Forty years, gone in a spark's bright flash. 

And yet, at the same time, a full forty years of memories of love and joy and sorrow and laughter and grief and throughout all of it, holding on to each other, making each other laugh, making each other feel loved, making each other as happy as we know how to do. 

I guess what I'm saying here is, I love that man. I am so glad he was born and that we met and that we fell in love and I had the sense to marry him and that I'd really, really like about forty years more. 

Well. 

I realize that we are luckier than most and I'll take what I can get. 

Love...Ms. Moon