Happy 55th Birthday, Beloved Muff

I can't get this song out of my head today, my friend. It has been 8 years since your passing, and it still feels like yesterday...the wound is still fresh.

I am everything I am because you loved me.
You were my strength when I was weak
You were my voice when I couldn't speak
You were my eyes when I couldn't see
You saw the best there was in me
Lifted me up when I couldn't reach
You gave me faith cause you believed
I am everything I am because you loved me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CkKuA86Mis

You would have laughed at the sentimentality of this song, and told me of a "better" Irish tune, no doubt, one that was certainly more bloody and profound (and had at least one stanza in Gaelic), but, since you aren't here to scold me, I've taken liberties, amiga.
Forgive me.

I still miss you, and think of you all the time. I wonder if you can hear me when I talk to you, and plead for intercession on behalf of my family, beset with health and financial problems, and I wonder if you are able to talk to God about interfering in the affairs of His children. If so, I thank you for your blessing of friendship and care, and I pray that your spirit is happy and at peace.

Yesterday Ellen Gabrielleshi, from the Clarke Theater Dept was the professor/staff spotlight on Clarke's blog, and I remember you and Ellen laughing when you were helping to build sets or working on The Great Cross Country Race when we were freshmen. Ellen seemed to take to you, as a person, much like many others did during your time at Clarke, attracted to your wit and brilliant mind. She thought I was a lazy doofus, (and she was probably right), but she managed to not kill me for my many mistakes while I made my way through the theater program. Anyway, as I was reading her story I was reminded of how sympatico the two of you were, and how surprised I was that you took an English and History major instead of a theater major, like I did, because you were such a natural at so many things in the drama dept. You had no problem building sets, you learned lines swiftly and with ease and you could sew costumes and run a light or sound board without making any mistakes at all.
But then, I learned that your mother was a famed children's book author, and you came by your storyteller's abilities naturally. You were a reader and a bibliophile, and because of your love of books and stories, your entrance into the English dept made more sense the longer that I knew you. Though you were adept at helping build the stories told in the theater, your first love was the story on the printed page, bound between the covers of a book.
You used to hold "readings" where you'd read aloud from some book or other in your dorm room in Mary Fran, and there would be a crowd of people sitting on the floor or in the hallway, just come to listen to the tale you'd spun, mouths agape and minds engaged.
And then there were the "sagas" that you wrote, based on characters from movies, sports or TV shows, (or even just from your imagination) that you'd send to me to read, or you'd eventually post on online fan forums, once those became available in the 2000s.  I always encouraged you to get an agent and sell a story to either a magazine or a publishing company, but you were reluctant to let your stories become something that you "had" to do for financial reasons and more stories that you did for fun and because you loved telling tales.
I found this quote today on Shelf Awareness (an email publication you would have adored):
"Authors are probably my favorite guests. Better than I thought they'd
be, but I should have realized they're all natural storytellers. Even
though a lot them have not been on television before, they're just
great. They have a mastery of language... and they're all so different.
I'm always going to be fascinated talking to people about writing
process."
--Seth Meyers host of NBC's Late Night with Seth Meyers, in an Observer interview

That explains why you were so great at theater, because your natural storytelling abilities shone through for the audience. I often told you, and it is still true, that I wish that I had half of your talent for writing and storytelling, and I wish I was as capable and strong and faithful as you became, and as you were, right to the end. You were amazing, best beloved.
Big hugs to you here below, on your birthday.