Happy Birthday and 45th Anniversary Punkin

By Dan Barber

I won’t say how old you are, but you do have a lot of miles on you… over 60 trillion miles, and at a very high rate of speed, to boot, of about 66,600 miles per hour.**

I do admit that I too have a lot of miles on me because together we have been on a wild and fun ride that I would not trade for anything. It has been a magical destiny that was possibly started even before our parents were born, with a childhood blood brother pact our grandfathers worked out when they were children 50 years earlier in Nebraska before we even met in California. This scenario is probably unlikely, but they were in fact neighbors as recorded in the Nebraska census of 1910…it has been fun to speculate why we were made for each other.

I hope that what I have given you over the years has provided more happiness than sadness, more adventure than boredom and more security than insecurity.

Whenever you are in pain I am in more pain; whenever you are sad I am sadder; whenever you are happy I am happier because you give me purpose to my life.

We are survivors… because we have survived emotional turmoil; health scares; long separations because of my Navy obligations; and the challenges of parenthood. Our emotions have calmed; our illnesses and injuries were cured or repaired; our long separations adapted to by celebrating holidays, birthdays, anniversaries and events whenever we could; and our children survived to be successful adults with children of their own, that we now spoil. All of those things could not have been possible if you were not there to take care of the family while I was away from home. You adapted and flourished in many different cultures thousands of miles away from your childhood home and family.

There isn’t any material thing that I could possibly give you that is worthy of the love that I feel for you. I do promise to keep on loving you...hopefully for eternity.

Happy Birthday and Happy 45^th Anniversary!

** Based on the 93 million mile orbit of the earth around the sun in one year at a speed of about 66,600 miles per hour.