Honeybee

Happy birthday to the most wonderful girl in the world, the dearest friend I've ever had, and a better sister than anyone deserves.

I can't remember life before you, and I can't imagine life without you. Nothing for me has ever been real until you've been a part of it. You add a richness, a depth, and a warmth to a life that would otherwise be so bland, so meaningless, and so cold that I'd rather not have it.

There is no one in this world more fun than you. You are positively incandescent. Every single room, party, shindig, hoedown, bonfire, and hootenanny becomes better when you walk in. Your smile, your laughter, and your sheer enjoyment of life are wonderfully contagious. You can have more fun with sideways glances, ridiculous circumstances, funny pronunciations, and inside jokes (busted horses and Dirty Snow White?) than anyone I know.

You deserve all the laughter the world has to offer. Twenty years ago, we thought we'd never laugh again. How much time dragged by in dull, disbelieving silence? And then one night it was late and we were supposed to be sleeping, but there we were, laughing so hard we were both shaking. You laughed because I laughed, and I laughed because you laughed, and there was no stopping it. And what was so funny? Who knows. But no one else would've understood. I'll remember it forever.

Even when our roads diverged and life took us to separate places, you were (and still are) the only thing that has ever been constant for me. When I left home, when I moved out east, when I said I do, when I said I don't, when I sent dog picture after identical dog picture, you loved me, laughed with me, cried with me, and told me that I was not alone. If I have a home in this world, it's wherever you are.

I know when you're not telling everything, and you don't let me get away with omitting details. We have talked until dawn, laughed all night, fought for hours, and cried until the sun came up. I know every curve of your face, every giggle in your voice, and every nuance of your speech. I love it all.

It may well be that the meaning of my life is you: to let you know that you are safe and loved and that the world is bearable. And if that's my meaning, then it's meaning enough.

I'm so grateful for you and this day--your birthday--to celebrate you. Happy birthday--the world is a better place because you're in it.