Thirty-seven years ago today the potential for someone like you to exist in the world was realized. From that day forward you were more than just an opinion, you were a fact, indisputable. You were true.
You are older than me by several months, so I have never lived in a world where you were not true. You have always been a fact for me, though I didn't always know it. As a child I learned many other facts, like the fact that it takes seven seconds for the light from the sun to reach the earth, or the fact that Canadians return to the place of their birth once each year to spawn, but I didn't learn until I was nineteen what was to be the central truth of my life, the fact of you. I never knew, as I grew, that you were out there, a wiry young girl playing on playgrounds. I never knew your active mind as it played imagination games with your friends. I never knew you were silently beating all the brain boys in high school to graduate as the surprise Valedictorian. I was completely oblivious to the truth of you until we met.
Today I know nothing as well and as surely as I know you. I've forgotten other things, learned that others weren't true. You are my absolute. Every day, when I wake up, you are still there and you are still true.
Happy birthday, Susan. I love you.
Hello, friends. It's Susan's birthday.
Later. Love.
P. S. - If memory serves, it's also your twin sister's birthday. I think that's right. So, you know, happy birthday to Katie too.
