It’s Eric’s birthday today, and he is so easy to celebrate. To know him is to love him.
The open birthday letter is back, and I hope you will join me in wishing him the most amazing day!
An ode to my husband on his birthday:
We’ve been making a playlist of songs to play in the delivery room. One of the first songs Eric added was “Here Comes the Sun” by The Beatles. When it comes on the radio, I immediately turn in to a blubbering mess. Baby Girl Gay is indeed our sunshine after the rain. As only some of you know, we received a pretty devastating infertility diagnosis in 2018. Spoiler alert: prayer, doctors and scientific innovation helped us conceive, and our joy is coming in the morning (figuratively speaking. She comes in August ????).
The song just wrecks me. Such simple lyrics turn me into a blubbering, thankful idiot and spark a photographic montage in my brain of our marriage thus far.
The lyrics go, “Little darling, it’s been a long cold lonely winter. Little darling, it feels like years since it’s been here.”
When I reflect on who Eric Gay is to me, I think a lot about the hard times. Not because I like to dwell on them, because Lord knows sad memory lane is not a road I enjoy traveling. But, when I think about Eric, I think about how he is such a source of sunlight during the long, cold, lonely winters.
When I think of my husband, I picture him catching me as my knees gave out when the doctors told me my father had died during an operation he was supposed to come through easily. I picture him ninja-jumping the median on the interstate to get to me after a bad car wreck. I picture him caring for me as I cared for my mother in her final days. I picture him assuring me that we will have the family we know God has promised, one way or another. I picture him fighting with me until the wee hours of the morning and refusing to give up on our relationship. I picture him working long hours to support and provide for us. I picture him dancing terribly to make me laugh on bad days and good days.
Then the song goes, “Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting. Little darling, it seems like years since it’s been clear.”
The ice clears, and the snow melts, and Eric Gay is standing there with a gigantic metaphoric space heater to make sure it does so quickly. When I think about my husband, the flashback of memories also includes singing karaoke duets on vacation. It includes dancing the night away at our wedding. It includes celebrating work wins together over Mexican food, jump-scaring him when he gets out of the shower, dreaming about the future and coming up with ideas to get us there. When I think about my husband, I remember getting to tell him that the procedure worked, the pregnancy test is positive, and the happy tears we shed together afterwards. I remember him blasting loud music and yelling toward my belly, “baby girl, listen up! This is a great song!” and I picture him being such an incredible father to our child.
“Here comes the sun, doo-dun-doo-doo. Here comes the sun, and I say, It’s all right.”
God has given me such an incredible, faithful, strong, steadfast life partner. There are times when I am floored by the bond that one human can have with another, and I’m floored that I get to experience it. Plus, he’s handsome, talented, brilliant, etc., so those are all just cherries on top of this big blessed bowl of ice cream. ????
He’s such a source of sunlight in my life. More ice will form, inevitably, but he’s got that symbolic space heater on high blast, and I thank God for him every day. I’m not sure what I did to deserve this Sun in my life. I just hope that I can provide a fraction of light and warmth to him as he gives to me.
Happy birthday, babe.
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