Didn't Make It

My husband, who often thrived on being as different from others as possible, was eagerly looking forward to turning 40. He couldn't wait. He was so excited.

He didn't make it.

Today would have been Chadwick's 40th birthday. We should be having carrot cake and painting the town red. I should have bought him an incredible fun gift. We should be playing with the Spiderman Jenga set I bought him for his 39th birthday (yes, really) and celebrating having made it this far together.

The time Chad & I climbed this tree, inspiring
our niece & nephew to follow suit. It's a great
tree for climbing.

I was tempted, when thinking for the past couple of weeks about this day coming, to lock myself in my house and refuse to come out. I also thought about going down to Town Lake and enjoying the quiet of the trail in a place that he loved so well (I will probably still do that, just not all day). Instead, I've invited friends over. We'll have drinks and snacks and toast to his memory. We'll sing goofy karaoke (I've been practising "On My Own"-- I still can't believe Les Mis karaoke is a thing) and laugh together. We'll do the things that he would have enjoyed doing if he were here with us.

So, here's a story I've been sharing a lot lately: Once upon a time in Bible Bowl, we were doing a sketch about unlikely superheroes. Chad was assigned "Opera Man," and in the five minutes between when we were handed the script at rehearsal and his first lines, he tweaked them and set them to Javert's part of "The Confrontation" from Les Mis. When we got to his line, he absolutely belted it out and amazed the whole room (not to mention giving us all a fright, since we weren't expecting it). Obviously, he got lots of cheers, and by the following week he'd perfected all his lines and could sing them all to different parts of "The Confrontation." He rummaged in the costume closet at church and came to the stage dressed as the Phantom of the Opera (minus the mask) and singing all of his lines. Cue much more cheering. No wonder all the kids liked him so much. And so Les Mis karaoke for his birthday isn't so weird, really.

And I'll get through one day more still standing, or at least with friends by my side who keep me from falling down.