Best birthday gift--again

 I just got the best birthday gift!  It's not my birthday and it technically is a card, and not a gift per se.  But it was more exciting today than it was on my actual birthday back in 1984--yes, 1984.  

One of our nurses son has a radio show, well, several, shows, and one of them is called Vinyl in Your Pocket where he and his cohost play a vinyl record album and talk about the artist, songs and history.  He was running out of albums to play so I offered up some of our collection.  Gene and I haven't had a turn table in years but we have kept a bunch of records.  I gave Alek a handful of albums and he's played a couple so far (my favorite Zebra album being one of them).  

This morning, Nurse Staci came and handed me an album that Alek had played.  

Wow. I don’t even remember owning this album. But I know it is mine. I know it's mine one, because Gene never would have owned a Duran Duran album, and two, because I peeked into the sleeve and saw a jagged piece of red paper. I pulled it out and my heartrate immediately started picking up as I realized what it was.  I knew that hand writing.  

I know it’s not the best pic but can you see the writing?  That’s my best friend from childhood, Laura’s handwriting. Laura passed away from breast cancer in December of 2017.  In our later adult years, we hadn't been as close as we had in junior high and high school but we always knew that each other was out there for each other.  Laura ended up living in the Pacific Northwest far away from our childhood in Long Island, NY.  I had skipped up to Vermont after high school and have remained planted here.  She was one of the smartest people I knew.  Her dad was a chiropractor and Laura ended up becoming a chiropractor and became a naturopathic doctor.  She was pretty crunchy :)  We may have drifted apart...she getting into the things she loved and I got married and Gene and I had two kids both with a neuromuscular disease called spinal muscular atrophy, type 1.  So both Laura and I were enmeshed in our current lives but we always had our childhood and teenage memories.  Boys, friends, our twin Schwinn bikes, the park, the sleepovers, the parties, the vacations, the music.  And we were there for each other.  

I was still half asleep as I had been nurse Mom to Casey overnight and hadn't even finished brewing my French Press yet.  But I couldn't wait.  I pulled the card from the envelope and my heart skipped a couple of beats.  I had no memory of this card but I obviously had read it since it was ripped open.  

So funny!

I laughed when I pulled the card out. NOT a typical card choice for Laura to have made. 

Here is what she wrote:

7/28/84

Dear Sue-

I always get you a mushy card, the same kind all the time.  For the big 21 I decided to be different. And since this is the year to drink...

HAVE ONE (hundred) ON ME! 

Well, 

HAPPY 

BIRTHDAY!!

Love Always,

Laura

Moooch!!

......................

Oh, my heart!  Swamped with memories and feelings. 

Laura's moniker was Cow.  Actually, we didn't really call her that but MOOO was her byword, her expression, her way of saying hello and goodbye,  When I write on her Legacy Facebook page I always end with MOOOO!  

She ended this card with Moooch, which was one of the ways we'd say Love you/Smooch, etc.   

I don't know what made me peek into the album cover this morning, but I'm glad I did.