Insert Loved One Here

While I've lost the chance to say it to you, I will say it in my heart today. Happy Fucking Birthday. Most of the time, I get hung up on the regrets, remorse, and grief, but today I'd rather just hit your highlight reel. Not that where you are, it matters that much. It's only a distance I can see the beautiful subtlety of your character. It occurs to me I never sung these praises. To borrow a phrase, "I loved you worst than most, but to the best of my ability."   

Happy Birthday to the artist without anguish. A Four-less creator with an unparalleled sense of color and composition. Someday, I hope the world recognizes your unassuming skill and talent. If there were any justice in the world, it would have afforded you a low bandwidth existence with near infinite nesting opportunities.

Your selflessness and generosity never made sense to me. That's not quite enough. It baffled me. My base heart couldn't process that much care for another person. And it came so easily to you. And it sticks with me; still rattles my tree.

A giant of resourcefulness and ingenuity, never a slave to functional-fixedness. You could MacGyver a fix with nothing but spit and a junk drawer. It wasn't pretty, but it got done. I would have been on my tenth YouTube tutorial, frantically scribbling notes.

With the bitter gift of time, what I've come to appreciate most about you is the myriad of ways in which you are not me. It is your unassuming and implicit inversion of my ideals I find most the most challenging, endearing, and aspirational. Chipping away at a monolith one day at a time, I've been improved at your expense. It is an unplayable debt, but I craft this birthday message channeling my inner Sam Seaborn.

You may be a quiet Nine, but you'll always be a ten to me. 

Happy Birthday.