3. Happy Birthday
Feb 14, 2021
Hey Chadderbox,
Happy birthday! You would’ve been 32 today. 32! I wish you were here.
Morgan and I are going to get together in a bit to release some balloons for you. Every year since you left, your mom has coordinated a balloon release in your honor for your birthday. We all release balloons into the seemingly always overcast sky (your favorite) and share a memory of you from wherever we are.
I usually tie the final two balloons together before I send them off. Skip-Hop and Slide-Hop, together, on their way to see you. It’s something I think of often.
Chadderbox, I love you a lot. As I wrote about before, I’m realizing that that love doesn’t go anywhere. Doesn’t find a new person, doesn’t fall by the wayside. Sometimes it aches to hold without being able to express it. A lot of us are just holding on to this monumental love for someone who loved each of us in different, thoughtful ways.
But there are moments when the people who love you have come together to make it less heavy.
Like when I FaceTimed my mom to tell her about this project the other day, and her bright blue eyes got even lighter as she went silent for a second. She cried as she remembered the way you called her Mrs. and how much you mean to her. She knows how much you mean to her kids.
Or when I first went away to college and got to see my first concert, and I called Morgan and put it on speakerphone when the band played the song you showed us so we could listen together. It felt like you were on the call, too.
It’s the night I stopped apologizing for crying about losing you, and the person I was with stopped apologizing for crying about losing him, and we gave ourselves permission to stop concealing how much both losses hurt. We held the love and allowed ourselves to navigate every corner of that aching together. Grieving in front of someone else can be terrifying. It wasn’t that night.
It’s the day I called Dani in tears when I was having relationship problems right after high school because I finally saw and understood her in ways I never did before. And it’s her, promising she’d be there for me and that she loved me despite the way I treated her when I didn’t understand her actions. It’s her continually loving me through my naivety, and pushing aside how hard all of it is for her in order to comfort others.
It’s the time my mom told me how Sami feels to this day for having to miss your funeral. And how badly I want to hug her and tell her I know how much she loves and misses you, too.
When there’s growth, when there’s empathy, when there’s forgiveness, and when there’s understanding. It’s when the people who love you connect that I feel like you’re the closest.
Every year I release the balloons, wish you a happy birthday, and write about what you mean to me. This year, I want to share a collection of the music you shared with me. This playlist contains the songs from two of the Doorstep Albums you gave me as well as the song recommendations you sent over Facebook messenger from 2009 to 2011. Not every song you shared was available on Spotify, but I got most of them. I hope this helps someone else who loves you hold on to that love today. I hope this helps someone remember you even a little bit better.
I’m making you a Doorstep Album of my own, Chadderbox. But like all of our mixes, you know it has to be carefully curated. Can’t wait to show you some gems from the last 10 years I think you’d like. Let’s listen together, yeah?
Happy birthday, Chadderbox.
Love you like a brother,
—BreSoftware
