Wedding bell blues

July 26, 2009 by Beth Shepherd

Part III of V

The first sign of trouble began six months later, when I received the e-mail from the owner of the B&B where the ceremony would be held. The city council on Bainbridge Islan d had decided to uphold a little known (and rarely enforced) ordinance that prohibited B&Bs from hosting “events” on their property. The e-mail said that she would have to cancel our wedding. That’s right, cancel our wedding.

Panic ensued. We scrambled around trying to see if the ordinance could be overlooked (no); whether there were any other venues we could use on the island for our wedding date (no); and, finally what other options we could scrounge up. We looked at prospective wedding sites in Port Orchard, Seattle and Whidbey Island.

A couple months later, our good friends, Carolyn and Wendell, were visiting from Michigan and staying at Morgan Hill Retreat, a B&B in Poulsbo, just a 20-minute drive north from Bainbridge Island. I called to talk to Carolyn and found myself chatting with Marcia, Morgan Hill’s owner. “Hey, this is a really random question,” I ventured. “Would you ever consider holding a wedding at your B&B?” “Yes,” she said. She would.

Morgan Hill Retreat turned out to have much of the same charm as the first B&B, more in fact. There was a little pond surrounded by greenery and a beautiful old cedar tree at its edge. A rowboat sat on the shore. I made Big Papa promise he’d take me out in it, after we said our ‘I do’s,’ so that our first moments as husband and wife, would be just the two of us.

Marcia even gave us the name of another nearby B&B where Big Papa and I could stay on our wedding night since we couldn’t envision bunking next door to our moms as a newly married couple. We called and made a reservation.

Mid-June, a month before our wedding, an e-mail arrived from the owners of our wedding night B&B. “We’re excited to announce we’re off on a new career adventure and have decided to sell our home. Unfortunately, this means we need to cancel your stay at our inn.” So, with less than a month to spare, in the height of wedding season, we found ourselves searching for a place to lay our heads. We joked with Marcia that we could sleep in her barn with the llamas, until she hooked us up with some neighbors just about to launch a new B&B, A Loft Ab0ve, up the road. We were set. Or so we thought.

Goin’ to the chapel

July 25, 2009 by Beth Shepherd

Part II of V

Big Papa proposed a year after we met. We had just finished having dinner at Central Cinema, a little movie theater and café around the corner from the Urban Cabin. My immediate response was, “Are you serious?!” From the look on his face I could see he was indeed serious, so I gave a resounding “Yes!” We looked forward to enjoying a long, relaxed engagement.

As we talked about our vision for our wedding, we pictured something small and intimate (truth be told we also toyed with the idea of eloping to New Zealand). We both love nature, so we knew we wanted to be married outdoors. And, since our first date had been a ferry ride to Bainbridge Island, we hoped we could find a little park or Bed and Breakfast on the island to host our event.

It wasn’t as easy as we thought. Parks didn’t allow alcohol and we wanted wine, B&Bs generally couldn’t handle more than 25 to50 guests and, at the time, we planned on inviting 75. Some diligent searching led us to a lovely B&B, with a little pond and a place where our immediate family could stay. It seemed like a good fit. We picked a July 28, 2007 for the date, chose Rebecca Sullivan to be our photographer, Robert Freitag of Metro Market Catering a caterer on the island and Persephone Farms, a local organic farmer for our flowers.

Finding someone to officiate was the biggest challenge. Neither of us attended a church and yet we hoped to feel a connection with the person who would perform one of the most important rituals of our lives. After nine interviews with potential officiates, we found one with whom we felt comfortable. I planned to write most of our ceremony and work with her on the details. Susan, our officiate, also agreed to being our “day of” wedding coordinator. We were off to the races!

1-9-0-5

July 24, 2009 by Beth Shepherd

Part I of V

All hail the Internet! Without it, Big Papa might never have entered my life. When we met, I’d been dabbling with online dating on and off for several years. On New Year’s Day, 2005, I was about to head into an off phase. I needed a break. A spell of disastrous dates had dealt my self-esteem a serious blow and I wanted off the Match.com merry-go-round.

The New Year began with me purging all the emails from ‘prospects’ I’d corresponded with in recent months. Then I canceled my membership. I was informed that my profile would remain up for three days before I would fade into Match.com history.

As a parting gesture, I ceremoniously sent one final e-mail into the ether to a guy whose profile said he found that “pulling weeds was therapeutic.”Salt of the earth, I liked that. My e-mail read, “In three days I’ll be a Match.goner. If something in my profile piques your interest, my home e-mail is…”

A reply was in my in-box the next morning. For the next few days, little missives were exchanged, and we discovered a bit about each other. We both moved to Seattle from similar cities on the east coast in 1985. We’d each done a few-year stint in California. I had two cats and he had one (big points for being a guy with a cat). He also lived barely a mile from my apartment, which meant he was geographically desirable, as a former boss used to say.

We decided to meet in person and bypass the awkward, “Let’s chat on the phone” stage of the blind dating process. Sick of coffee dates that felt like job interviews, I asked if he would suggest “something more unique” for our first get together. He responded with, “How about a ferry ride?” Brilliant! I love to ride the ferry and this adventure sounded like fun, albeit that it was early January and snow was in the forecast. Some months later, we both confessed to each other that we’d had second thoughts. Big Papa told me he’d mused to himself, “Why waste a perfectly good Sunday on something that isn’t likely to go anywhere.”

Our rendezvous was set for Sunday, January 9, 2005. I offered up transportation to the ferry and Big Papa gave me his address. His house number was 1-9-0-5.

So, on 1-9-05, I drove up to 1905 and picked him up. My first impression was that the Urban Cabin was cute and homey. Standing in the doorway, I saw two Edward Hopper prints, one of my favorite painters. I like the colors in Big Papa’s home. It looked like a place where I’d feel comfortable. It also didn’t hurt that I thought Big Papa was pretty handsome too.

He got into my car. I was nervous. He was nervous. Off we drove to the Bainbridge Island ferry. As we chatted more, we both relaxed. I had a feeling of ease and familiarity. Talking with Big Papa was as comfortable as standing in the doorway of the Urban Cabin.

The ferry ride led to wine tasting at the Bainbridge Island Winery, which led to hanging out at Fay Bainbridge State Park and eating cheese and frozen chocolate truffles (remember, this was early January), which led to dinner back in Seattle at Coastal Kitchen.

When I dropped Big Papa off at the Urban Cabin, some eight hours later, we kissed goodbye. He told me he enjoyed our time together and wanted to go on a second date. Driving back to my apartment, I realized I felt none of the first-date angst that so often accompanied online dating. Did he like me? Yes, I felt fairly confident he did. Would he really call me to get together again? Yes, I was pretty sure he would. Honestly, it was the best dang date I’d ever been on.

I smiled to myself as I reminisced about our first date on 1-9-05. I smiled bigger as I thought about Big Papa and 1905, the Urban Cabin. After many years of wandering, it felt like I’d finally come home.

This old house

July 20, 2009 by Beth Shepherd

I’ll never forget that cold, rainy day in late October 2005 when the last of the boxes with all my worldly belongings made their way to the Urban Cabin. I left my keys inside the cozy apartment I’d lived in for ten years and shut the door.

I drove the mile between my former abode and my new home, the Urban Cabin, where Big Papa had had been a solo camper for two years, put my key in the lock, turned the knob and entered new surroundings and my new life. Big Papa and I nervously surveyed the boxes covering every nook and corner. And then we stared at each other.

For a single guy, the Urban Cabin offers a luxurious amount of space, a large living room and dining room, an enormous kitchen and two petite bedrooms. Before I moved in, we’d joke that the dining room was just the room you walked through to pass from the front door to the kitchen. It held a table and an assortment of bicycle tires. Now, you couldn’t see the window with all the boxes, furniture and clothing layered a mile high. I’m sure we both silently worried, “There is no possible way all this stuff will fit inside these four walls.”

Fast forward four years. The Urban Cabin is comfortable and homey. We’re not up to our necks in nic-nacs. We managed to find places for a little bit of his and a little bit of hers. I bid a fond farewell to piles of things that I realized I no longer needed or wanted. It was cathartic, actually, to purge. I’m sure there’s more we could sell or give away, but we’ve made considerable headway over the past few years living under one roof.

One of the first things that crossed our minds when we started to talk about becoming parents is, “Where are we going to stash the kid?” A kid who needs a place to lay his head, much less a place to store his toys, books, stroller, car seat, changing table, potty seat and clothes.

The Urban Cabin has exactly two tiny closets that fit neatly inside the two tiny bedrooms, one of which now accommodates two office desks, file cabinets and a couple bookcases. In the bathroom, a clawfoot tub sits ten inches from the sink and eighteen inches from the toilet. 111-year old fir floors have worn to a burnished hue and also manage to leave decent-sized splinters if we slide, rather than pick up our feet, as we walk from room to room.

It didn’t take long before we realized we’d need to find new digs or do some digging to turn the Urban Cabin into a space that works for three. We spent a few months dipping our toes into the real estate market on weekend mornings, while pondering whether to dig down, build up or expand out on weekday nights.

In the end, we chose to stay. And so begins our remodel adventure.

Born on the 4th of July

July 3, 2009 by Beth Shepherd

This Saturday our nation honors its 233rd birthday. Big Papa, also born on the 4th of July, turns 45. When you’re born on the 4th of July, the entire nation is celebrating on “your” day. It’s a national holiday and families have the day off. There are picnics, BBQs and, of course, fireworks.

In our neighborhood, the festivities get started days prior. Bottle rockets and M-80s fill the silence of the night and for Big Papa, a good night’s sleep on his birthday, can be nigh impossible. A few years ago, when we started dating, I asked him what he wanted for his birthday. “Peace and quiet,” was the response. I laughed, “The only place you’re going to get that is in another country.” Then it hit me. “Canada!” I exclaimed. “Brilliant!” said Big Papa. And so our Canadian birthday tradition began.

One year we went to Salt Spring Island off the coast in the Canadian Gulf Islands. Twice we visited the little town of Ladner, just north of the Canadian border on the Frasier River, where we stayed at the lovely River Run Cottages.

This year, we’re going to Vancouver. I’m embarrassed to say that in our mutual 24 years of living in the Pacific Northwest, neither of us has ever been to Vancouver proper, just three hours (plus a border crossing) north from where we live. I’ve heard wonderful things about the city, both its physical beauty and thriving cosmopolitan culture. Big Papa and I are really excited about this trip.

Big Papa’s holiday birthday got me ruminating about birthdays in general and the significance of the day you are born. I marveled at the irony of being born on Independence Day. Big Papa’s birthday was his first independent day from his mother’s womb.

Birthdays that fall on holidays are fraught with competing interests. I have a few friends whose birthdays fall between Christmas and the New Year. They have commented that presents get “combined” and their birthday plays second fiddle to the hubbub surrounding the holidays. Other friends with birthdays on holidays have said that it was tough to find attendees for birthday parties because their friends were celebrating the holiday with family or out of town.

The day, month and year of your birth is also filled with meaning. We typecast by the Zodiac signs, chit-chatty Gemini twins and cautious Cancer crabs. Following Chinese astrology, Year of the Pig folks are known for chivalry and Year of the Dragon people are thought to be energetic.

In anticipation of my adopted niece’s arrival from China, I bought all sorts of bunny-themed gifts to commemorate her birth in the year of the Rabbit, or so I thought. Her birthday falls in late January. Since the Chinese astrology is based on a lunar calendar, the new year shifts, sometimes by as much as several weeks. It turned out that my niece was actually born in the Year of the Tiger!

Not knowing the exact date of birth is a common conundrum for adoptees. Orphanages frequently make an educated guess as to the window of time when the baby may have been born and assign a birthday. In thinking about birthdays, my mind wanders to our child, who has by now, likely entered the world. I look forward to the day when I can set a candle on his cake to honor his birth, even if the date turns out to be something of a mystery.

Crazy cat lady

June 29, 2009 by Beth Shepherd

For a solid decade I felt pretty certain I’d evolve into one of those crazy cat ladies you hear about in the news, just me and my two sweet cats for ever more. A number of guys I dated during that period either didn’t like cats or were allergic to cats. One I nicknamed ‘Allergic Guy.’ He was allergic to all sorts of things, including cats. Three weeks into dating he said, “You’ll need to make a decision soon about the cats.” Decision made. Cats stayed. Allergic Guy didn’t.

When I met Big Papa and met, I found out he had a cat named Cleo. He got

several extra Brownie points right on the spot. Sadly, she passed away suddenly and unexpectedly three weeks into our relationship. We buried Cleo together in the backyard and planted a lovely Bleeding Heart plant where she lies.

After we’d dated a couple months, I started to bring my cats over for “weekend camping” at the Urban Cabin. I’d pack up their cat food, medicine (one was diabetic and the other has a digestive tract ailment), stick the cats in the kitty carrier and off we went. Mr. Madison took to the adventure right away. For one, the Urban Cabin has a fenced backyard. Maddie loved the outdoors and hadn’t been able to enjoy it for the decade we were in my apartment on a busy street. The first weekend I brought him over, we opened the back door. Out he went and out he stayed for most of the weekend. He gave the paws up signal on the yard and Big Papa pretty quickly.

Miss Magnolia was another story. She spent the first weekend under the bed, clearly disturbed, emerging only at night to meow loudly back and forth through the rooms like a ghost clanking its chains in the silence of a haunted house. The outdoors held many unknown terrors for Maggie and, when she did go out, she usually retreated to the perceived safety of a bush or hid under the deck.

Both Madison and Maggie took immediately to Big Papa. I knew Big Papa was a keeper when, on their first night over, Maddie crawled under the covers and set up camp lodged snugly between us. It didn’t seem to throw Big Papa and I thought it was a magnanimous act on his part. Madison always called first dibs on Big Papa’s office chair. If Big Papa stood up for even just a moment, Maddie was there in a flash. In the morning, they’d check email, Maddie draped languidly over Big Papa’s arms in the living room chair. He’d follow Big Papa around in the garden, stopping here and there to check out a plant.

When Madison passed away at the ripe old age of nearly eighteen, I was devastated. Big Papa was at my side and took the day off to console me. Madison had been my buddy for nearly a third of my life. I miss him dearly and Big Papa and I still wonder WWMD (What Would Madison Do) when certain scenarios crop up in our lives.

Over time, Maggie grew more comfortable the house and the backyard. After Madison died, she acquired rule of the roost, and really seemed to come into her own at the ripe old age of thirteen. She too looks to Big Papa for comfort. He’s a talented head scritcher and a suitable Barcalounger when she wants to watch a movie or snooze at night. She seems to love nothing more than to stretch to her greatest length along Big Papa’s legs.

Big Papa’s roll with it ease and generosity of spirit are two of the traits I fell in love with. He’s takes good care of us. We eat great food and fall to sleep with the Urban Cabin’s cozy roof over our heads. These are just a few of the reasons I know he’ll be a heckuva Dad when the time comes. Mr. Madison, Miss Magnolia and I were a lucky trio, to be sure, when Big Papa came into our lives.

A tree grows in Seattle

June 26, 2009 by Beth Shepherd

A Kapok tree grows in Seattle! Kapok trees grow in tropical climates like Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, Northern South America, India and, apparently, Santa Barbara, which is where Big Papa got his little sprout from a friend about five or six years ago. Full-grown Kapoks can reach an impressive 200-230 feet in height and 10 feet in diameter. The fiber in their seed pods was once used in life vests as it’s waterproof and buoyant.

When I met Big Papa, the Kaypok sat potted in his kitchen window box, and was about six inches tall with a couple leaves. I quickly grew very fond of this little sprout, a stranger in a foreign land. I wanted the Kapok to feel welcomed and loved and come to know the Urban Cabin as home. I made sure the Kapok got water and fertilizer and I turned it every week to give each side equal bits of sunshine. Big Papa and I even got the Kapok its own Tiger.

Every time the little Kapok put out a new leaf, we made a big fuss, like two hens nurturing their brood. The little Kapok grew and grew. Soon it needed a new pot. By now the Kapok had several levels of leaves. Each time it would bust out a new set of leaves, the lower set would drop and the little Kapok would take the entire trunk up a notch.

Two summers ago we thought we should introduce the Kapok to the world outside. I carefully set it on the back deck in the sun. Within 24 hours, the leaves were burned and it soon dropped most of them. In a panic, I brought the Kapok back indoors and worried for a few weeks that I’d killed it. But I hadn’t. That little plant just kept on growing.

This summer we set the Kapok outside again, but this time, in dappled sunlight underneath a couple friendly old yellow plum trees. The Kapok has been out there for a solid month, through rain and wind and more sunny days than Seattle typically sees this time of the year. I go out and check on it daily, give it water if it’s dry and make sure the Tiger has a good view. And, of course, every time we see more leaves, we make a fuss.

Today I took out a measuring tape and I’ll be darned if that little Kapok isn’t a few inches over three feet. It’s still got 197 feet to go, but I’m darn proud of our little tree. I’m also fairly certain we’ve got the only Kapok in Seattle.

At three feet plus the pot, the Kapok now exceeds the height of its former abode, the window box. What do we do? Our sprout has become a toddler. I’m not sure it’s ready for life outside year-round, but it’s definitely outgrown its old digs. Big Papa and I discuss the future of our Kapok. Should we try to donate it to the Volunteer Park Conservatory, home to many exotic and tropical plants? Or possibly plant it in our backyard. We smile when we imagine a 200 foot Kapok dwarfing even the 80 year old, 60 foot plus cedar tree in front of our house.

On many occasions, when I think about our Kapok, I also think about our kiddo. The little sprout we have yet to bring home and nurture. I hope Big Papa and I can give him a home where he will thrive and grow. Seattle is not Armenia. The soil is different and so is the light. But I hope that as time passes, our child will feel welcomed and loved. One thing I know for sure is that he can count on us taking good care and making a big fuss.

Whale of a birthday

June 19, 2009 by Beth Shepherd

June 15 was a spectacular day. For starters, I was in Big Sur. Waking up to the smells and sounds of the ocean counts as a darn good day in my book. Taking that first sip of coffee while sitting on a deck overlooking the Pacific is hard to beat. Toss a couple of Humpback whales swimming by into the picture, and it’s nothing short of magical. This was how my 50th trip around the sun began.

Big Papa and I spent two nights at Treebones Resort to celebrate my five decades on the planet. For many, ‘resort’ conjures up images of plush towels, bedtime turn-down, Jacuzzi tub in the bathroom and five-star dining. Treebones is a different sort of resort experience all-together. First of all, we slept in a yurt. For those not in the know, a yurt is like a tent with a wood floor. Yurts are ancient structures that were used by Central Asian nomads for centuries. Our yurt was pretty cushy with a real bed, electricity and running water. Treebones has sixteen yurts, and fittingly for a June 15 birthday celebration, our yurt was number fifteen.

Breakfast at Treebones is self-serve waffles or homemade granola. They also offer tasty lunch and dinner which you can eat in their cozy lodge or outside on the deck. For my birthday dinner, we ordered the Tagine for two, a yummy stew with Middle Eastern flavors. Ours had chicken, apricots and almonds. The food was fantastic, though even Dinty Moore might have tasted pretty good with the view of the ocean from the deck.

Throughout the day, we saw a veritable ‘Partridge and a Pear Tree’ worth of marine and avian life from various vantage points at Treebones. The aforementioned Humpbacks were sighted over breakfast. Seeing their tail flukes wave and dive was spellbinding. During lunch we spotted a few dozen dolphins flying across the water in a flurry of leaps. Birds small and large flew overhead from the turkey vultures cruising the coastline, to Pelicans flying elegantly single file over the waves, to tiny Hummingbirds darting to and fro between the flowers. On land a few small brown brush rabbits hopped hopefully around the perimeter of the organic garden and the requisite on-site resort cats scurried through the brush.

And then there was the sunset. Big Papa and I sat and watched the sky turn every shade of crimson and tangerine imaginable until the sun fell to the horizon, burning bright like a day-glo island and gradually slipping below the surface. We sat together, nursing a glass of Cabernet from the bottle we received from Treebones for my birthday, waiting until every last bit of light was squeezed from the sky. As stars upon stars filled the darkness, Big Papa and I stood up and gave quiet thanks for the day, and walked hand in hand back to our yurt.

Spasiba

June 12, 2009 by Beth Shepherd

As a treat to honor of my upcoming 50th birthday, I took myself to Frenchy’s Day Spa for a manicure and pedicure. There’s nothing like looking down at ten shiny toes to put a smile on a girl’s face. It’s rare that I splurge on self-indulgences these days, so I couldn’t wait to have my hands and feet massaged and primped.

‘Ludmilla’ calls me over and gestures to have a seat. In a heavy Russian-sounding accent, she asks the usual “make the customer comfortable” questions as she goes about the business of turning my tootsies into treasures. “You married?” she asks. “Yes,” I answer. She follows with, “Children?” “Not yet, but we’re in the process of adopting.” “Oh blessing,” she says softly touching my hand. “We’re adopting from Armenia,” I tell her.

Her eyes grow wide as saucers. “My husband Armenian. I Azerbaijan.” “Armenian friends,” she says excitedly, gesturing toward two women bent over customers on the other side of the salon. She tells me that her father was Hungarian and her mother Azerbaijani. The conversation becomes very animated. Ludmilla doesn’t speak much English and all I know of Russian besides borscht is Spasiba, thank you. So I keep saying Spasiba and trying to answer her questions.

She wants to know if we will adopt a boy or a girl. Probably a boy, I tell her. Most families seem to want girls and we said boy or girl, so probably a boy. I’m not sure how much of the commentary she’s taking in, but I know she understands boy. Do I have picture? No. Name? No.

Age? Maybe a year or a bit older. We don’t know. We haven’t met him yet. I try to explain that we are waiting still for Armenian Prime Minister approval. I mention Tigran Sargsyan, the Prime Minister and Ludmilla helps me say his name correctly, rolling the r’s.

She tells me over and over that what we are doing is a blessing. I want to wrap my arms around her and give her a hug. Her words make me, an outsider, feel welcome. I am truly touched since I know that for many from that region, the Diaspora is hard. Of the nine million Armenians in the world, only three million live in Armenia.

I ask about her family, mother and father? All dead. Her husband’s family? Also dead. She has one daughter, who is twenty-two and living with her.

The hour passes quickly. My calluses have vanished, my fingernails are a luminous pink and my toes twinkle with red like fresh-picked Bing cherries. The deepest glow comes from within. My heart has been pampered too.

I stand up to leave, and as I press a tip into her hand Ludmilla presses her business card into mine. She tells me I must bring a picture in to show her the child we will adopt. I promise than when I have one, I will.

Ode to decades of yore

June 8, 2009 by Beth Shepherd

I turned twenty in Amsterdam. Heineken Brewery offered free Delft Blue birthday mugs with proof of Passport. I can’t remember anything else I did that day to commemorate leaving my teens behind, aside from quaffing a beer surrounded by a few of my study abroad friends. Celebrating a new decade abroad, in itself, is none too shabby.

My thirtieth was spent in the company of a dozen gal pals, one of whom threw me a surprise party. The gifts all bore a certain theme. One present was wrapped in “Over the hill” paper. Another friend bequeathed me salt and pepper shakers, a foreboding token for what I could expect would happen to my locks. Indeed, I sprouted considerably more gray hair as the decade rolled along.

Forty arrived on a gloriously sunny day. I organized my own birthday potluck picnic at Gasworks Park. Although, ‘fear of forty’ was rampant amongst my peers, I was decidedly hopeful. Whereas my twenties were chaotic and my thirties direction-less, I felt my forties held certain promise. My personal goals were clearer – find a good man, marry him and have a baby. Professionally, I’d amassed a bit of clout in my field and had direction. I assumed success and satisfaction were soon to follow.

Here I stand on the precipice of fifty, just one week away. I’ve been reflecting a fair amount on the decade past and the decade I’m about to enter.

As it turns out, I did realize some of the milestones I’d longed for in my forties, though somewhat later in the decade than I’d originally envisioned. Big Papa and I met when I was forty-five and married when I was forty-eight.

My career success and satisfaction really turned a corner when I finally allowed myself to leave the unhappy path I’d been on and direct my gaze toward my true passions, writing and photography. I was just a year shy of fifty when I found the courage, and had Big Papa’s support, to make this leap.

As for the baby I’d hoped for, I’ll be carrying that dream into the next decade. With any luck, I’ll be a mom at 50-something, the age when most become empty-nesters or grandparents.

Truth be told, there are days when I think I must be losing my marbles to consider tackling all this in my fifties. And while I can thank my mom and dad for passing down good genes in the aging department, when I look in the mirror, I know 30-something is long gone.

That said, I am without a doubt, happier than I’ve ever been in my life. I work out hard and I’m in better shape than I was decades ago. I know myself better and I’m much more courageous about going after what I want. My life is infinitely more balanced and is guided by my values and what truly matters.

When my friend Dee turned fifty, last October, I asked her how it felt. She said, “Great! I’ll take fifty, fifty-one, whatever I can get.” She died, just two months later, after succumbing to a brave decade-long battle with breast cancer.

As I mourned her passing, I vowed to welcome fifty with all my heart and soul. And fifty-one. And fifty-two. Whatever I can get! And so on that note, I respectfully bid adieu to my forties and open the door to what the next decade may bring.