You would have been 92 today, if your life hadn’t been cut short nearly eight years ago by something called malignant pleural effusion — that damned cancer.

As always on this date, I’ve been thinking back to our semi-annual birthday celebrations together. Your birthday was my half-birthday, and vice-versa, so the half-birthday person also received a gift — nothing big, sometimes humorous, but always chosen with a lot of thought and care.

And I would have been taking you out to dinner at one of our favorite places — probably that wonderful little French bistro in Old Town Alexandria, Le Refuge. In the really old days, back in the ‘70s and ‘80s, it would have been a heartier meal of prime rib at Costin’s Sirloin Room in downtown D.C.; but that’s been gone for a long time now. Remember the year I passed out there on my own birthday? That was classic.

If the big day happened to fall on a Friday or Saturday, we might have treated ourselves to whatever was playing at the Kennedy Center, the National, or the Signature Theater. Those were the days when people dressed up for theater evenings: men in suits and ties, women sparkling as their bejeweled jackets caught the lights of the gigantic chandeliers overhead. How I miss those days of good manners and elegance!

In your last few years, when you were so sick, we had quieter celebrations. I would cook one of your favorite dishes, or we would order delivery from your choice of restaurants — usually Chinese or Italian — and watch a movie or two. Until that last time, in 2017, when you didn’t want to eat at all and fell asleep during the movie, snuggled under the big, soft, furry blanket I had just given you for your final birthday.

And I remember our “Ribit Pact” — inspired by the little pillows you had bought for each of us, with two embroidered green frogs and the legend, “Together ‘til we croak.” I haven’t croaked yet, but when it’s my turn, I expect you to have dinner reservations and theater tickets waiting. It doesn’t even have to be one of our birthdays.

Meanwhile, happy birthday, “Merny,” yet again. Love you and miss you . . . more than I ever thought I would.

Just sayin’ . . .

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9/18/25