Happy 48th Birthday, Muff

Today, June 1, would have been Muff's 48th birthday.
I wish she were still alive to celebrate it, and to get a goofy card from me and some oddball present that I would send her from the West Coast.
She was always gracious about receiving gifts, even when they were things she didn't like, or want, or know what to do with.
She once told me she'd gone through more than one Christmas getting boys toys, like a GI Joe action figure, instead of something a girl would want, so she always tried to make sure that she gave gifts that were fitting for the recipient, and she wanted to be gracious about getting presents that were well thought out by the giver.
One year at Clarke I'd given her a gift of some of her favorite whiskey and some Irish coffee mugs for making Irish coffee at home before summer break.
She was so happy with such a simple gift that I felt like an idiot for having given her other presents in the past.
Yet she never failed to give appropriate gifts to me or to my son once he was born.
She sent lovely books, like Blueberries for Sal, Make Way for Ducklings, Don't Let the Pidgeon Drive the Bus and Possum Come A Knockin' that had Nick crowing with delight every time they were read to him (and I had to read them over and over again, because he loved the stories so much). She predicted Nick would come to love the Captain Underpants series (he did) and she regaled me with tales of reading to her brothers when they were kids, as well as reading to children at the Marshalltown Library where she worked.
Muff was amazing with children, she seemed to know so much about them, how they thought and what they felt and needed that I always figured she'd get married and have children of her own once she got out of college. But it was not to be, and Muff never found a man to settle down with and have those wonderful offspring she could nurture.
Still, she often told me that she felt she'd raised Michael, Bear and Danny, her brothers, and that they'd turned out so well she felt a real sense of pride in them as men.
Though her loss still batters and buffets my soul, I hope that she will look kindly on me this week from Gods library, and help me heal swiftly and well from my Crohns surgery.
Meanwhile, I hope that she's having a heckuva party up there, and that they're serving Irish coffee.