The best birthday present ever

I've told this story before, so I'm sorry if you've heard it, but it never gets old for me, so bear with me.

In June 2001 I moved from my hometown of Yuma, Arizona, to Colorado Springs to work at the Gazette. I don't make friends easily, so six months later when my birthday rolled around, I really only knew one person in town, my friend Sarah, who I had worked with in Yuma and had preceded me to the Gazette by a year or so. It being my first birthday away from my birthplace, I didn't want to just sit around the apartment, so I invited Sarah out to lunch. She was broke, so I offered to pay. The way my life had been going, paying for my own birthday lunch didn't see out of the ordinary.

I picked Olive Garden because having one in the same town was still a new thing to me. Ordinarily, I had to drive to Phoenix or San Diego to eat at one, so I still associated it with special events. We agreed to meet up there around 12:30.

I love Sarah. She has many fine qualities. Punctuality isn't one of them. So around 12:40, I was still waiting in the front area. I had told the greeter to hold off on seating me until she had arrived.

I was just sitting there when I heard someone call my name. I look up and see Erin, a reporter at the Gazette who had recently announced was leaving the paper to move to California. With her was someone I didn't know and didn't take much notice of at first.

Erin asked what I was doing, and I said I was waiting for Sarah. She and Sarah were friends, so she sympathized about her being late. She introduced me to her friend, whose name I didn't immediately remember because I'm lousy with names. Erin told me that she and her friend were having a goodbye lunch. I said, that's funny, it's my birthday, so it was a day for occasions.

About then, Sarah walked in. She and Erin chatted for a bit while I told the hostess that we're ready to be seated. Then it occurred to me that Erin and her friend, who I still hadn't paid much attention to, would be waiting for a while because they had just added their name to the list and I was near the top by this point. So I ask if they'd like to join us.

We get a booth, and I'm seated across from Erin's friend, and that was the first opportunity I had to get a good look at her. My first thought? She reminded me of the school teacher on "Little House on the Prairie." Not Miss Beadle. The other one. Eliza Jane.

(No, I never told her that. I never had the courage.)

My second thought was, "Nice eyes." I'm an eye person. I don't make eye contact easily, but when I do, I hold onto it. And she held my gaze too.

She wasn't getting into the conversation between Sarah and Erin, so I asked her a couple of questions and found out she had left the Gazette one month before I began. It was clear from the way she talked that she hadn't left under the happiest of conditions, but she wished me better luck there.

All the while, I kept taking in her face. Wicked chin. Sharp nose. Shy smile. At one point, Erin called her Deb, and this time I paid attention to the name. And I noticed the left hand was ringless.

At one point, Sarah excused herself. Knowing her, I figured she was going to tell the waitress it was my birthday so they'd sing to me. She did that, and they brought a small cake and sang whatever song it is they sing. It wasn't until I got the bill that I realized that the cake wasn't free. Not only had I paid for Sarah's lunch, I had paid for my own cake. (In her defense, she thought it was free and said she wouldn't have ordered it if she had known.)

So that was lunch. And it should have been the end of it, except I couldn't get Deb out of my mind. I thought, maybe, just maybe ...

I called Erin a two days later. She was packing to leave town. I asked her if she thought Deb would go out with me.

Her answer: "I don't know. She's a little strange."

My response: "I'm strange too. We'll get along great."

I got Deb's number from her, and it took me a half hour to work up the courage to use it. When I did, I got her answering machine. I had to go to work, so I did, and when I got there I had a pink message slip waiting in my inbox.

I still have it tacked to my bulletin board.

Deb, it turns out, had thought I was a nice guy, but she thought I was "with" Sarah, and so hadn't thought about asking me out. We made a lunch date, and the rest is history.

So despite the fact that she had left the Gazette a month before I got there, I met my future wife because I had picked Olive Garden, Sarah was late and Erin and Deb had decided to have a farewell lunch. Another reason I don't believe in coincidences anymore.

And that is how I got the best birthday present ever.

9/11

Deb died on Sept. 11, knowing, I'm sure, that it was the best way to make sure I wouldn't forget the date.

She phoned me on Sept. 11, 2001, to tell me the first tower had been hit. Shortly after I turned the TV on, I saw the second tower get hit. So even from the start, the worst day in our lifetimes was a part of our story.

And I know the same woman who loved to tell people that Ronald Reagan nearly ruined our wedding would get a big kick out of my telling people she died on 9/11. "Just don't tell them the year," she'd tell me before giggling.

So even though you'll never see it on a memorial at Ground Zero or hear it as they call out the names of the victims, you can say you heard about the one 9/11 casualty who died in Tampa.

Just don't tell them the year.

On its way

Happy birthday, sweetie!

Told you I wouldn't forget. Wish you were here. The cosmos still owes us bigtime.

Yes, sweetheart ...

I won't forget your birthday this year. I made that mistake once, and you never let me live it down. It's bad enough to think I already face an eternity of "You were going to go to a baseball game without me on MY birthday" without compounding the mistake.

And this year I'll try to not get the balloon bouquet stuck in a tree. OK?

Pride

I was watching "Pride of the Yankees" over the weekend and, of course, stayed with it to the end with Lou Gehrig saying he'd been given a bad break, but "Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth."

Though I won't claim to have that kind of courage, I will say I understand what he meant.

Sure, Deb dying was the worst thing that has ever, and is likely ever, to happen to me. And I may never truly recover from it.

But for the briefest of moments, I knew I was exactly where I was supposed to be. I was supposed to be her husband, her friend, her caretaker, her patient, her lover, her love.

How many people can truly say they were in the right place at the right time? I can.

I'm a lucky bastard.

Five years ago ...

I was standing in a sweltering trailer (someone had kicked the air conditioning vent closed) scared out of my wits, standing in front of a bunch of relatives, wondering what the hell I was doing.

What did I really know about the woman I was about to marry? I mean, sure, we had lived together for about two years, but so what? People got divorced after living together. What chance did we really have?

Then she stepped into the room, and she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. And for some reason, she was willing to get up in front of a bunch of my relatives and say that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with me.

We didn't know then that the rest of her life was only a little over two years. But that wouldn't have mattered.

Because when I saw her that day, I was certain I was doing the right thing, and five years later, I'm still certain it was.

I love you still, sweetie.