The Birthday Queen

If you know me at all, you know I love birthdays. I love your birthday, I love their birthday, and I love my birthday. I love the opportunity to celebrate another year around the sun and I love the opportunity to celebrate my loved ones. What is so great about loving birthdays is having a best friend who also loves birthdays. I shared this with Stephanie. I think that is why as soon as I woke up this morning, it hit me in the face. My first birthday without her. My first birthday without my best friend. She has been gone for six months now and the newness, reality, rawness and realization of her absence hasn't lessened.

Many of you may not know, but Stephanie and I didn't live in the same state after we were ten. Yet our friendship remained and we just grew closer as the years passed. Stephanie always made sure I felt special on my birthday no matter the distance. Two years ago, she drove up 10 hours for a weekend to spend it with me. Last year, knowing that my birthday was right after my wedding she would not let it be forgotten. The week before we left for our wedding (in the midst of her cancer treatments, mind you) I found several special gifts on my doorstep. She told me, "I want you to still feel like you had a birthday!" That's Stephanie, the Queen of Birthdays. It's not the gifts I miss, it's having a best friend who was like your third sister and thinking over and over how much she should be here and missing her unconditional love.

I pray that her and Keith are up there sharing a piece of a cake. Knowing Stephanie, it is paired with a glass of wine. I'm sure Keith has already told her that that is gross and that he will take his with a twisted tea. <3

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