I Still Suck At Celebrating Karen's Birthday

today is my wife's (karen) birthday. happy birthday karen! too bad i still suck at celebrating karen's birthday.

i've known karen for over twenty years, which is way more than half of my life. the first time i met her was at quincy track club, which is a summer program where kids of all ages learned about track and field. karen was entering high school that year and i was entering my second year of high school. the person running the quincy track club at the time was my high school track coach (geoff), so he recruited a bunch of us to help out that year. being only a track runner for one year, i volunteered to help out at quincy track club.

it's probably a good thing that i volunteered because i met karen as she was learning how to throw the discus. (for anyone curious, karen can't throw a discus.) i have vague memories (which is weird because i don't remember many things) of watching her trying to throw the discus. i also remember being fascinated with her eyes at the time.

granted, since then there has been a joke around my circle of friends about the color of karen's eyes. when we were young, a bunch of my friends and i were joking about what type of guy we were when it came to women. i made the claim that i was an eye-guy, meaning i was attracted to women with nice eyes. obviously, none of my friends believed me, so they asked me what color karen's eyes were. (karen's eyes are blue.) thinking that hazel was a form of blue, i said hazel. i got grief for that answer. since then, i have been conditioned to answer any eye color question... blue. (a police officer even asked me once what the color of my eyes were... and i said blue. my eyes are nowhere close to being blue.)

anyway, karen still ended up marrying me even though i didn't know what color her eyes were. so, i consider myself pretty lucky in that regards.

so when it comes to her birthday, i usually try to do something special for her. the only problem: i can never think of anything for her. i generally find getting presents for karen very difficult because she never seems to want anything.

this year, especially, has been quite difficult. karen and i were expecting our first child due at the beginning of next year. our son (braden) was born extremely premature at 23 weeks. braden was able to survive for a week before finally passing a month ago. obviously, his passing has been difficult for us. both karen and i, however, are blessed to have such great family and friends to help support us during these times. but needless to say, karen has not really been in a celebratory mood lately. the only thing that karen really wants... i'm afraid i cannot get her. if i could, i would... no doubt.

before i forget, i want to thank everyone who gave me suggestions on what to get karen. thank you... all of you. i really do appreciate it. in the end, i decided to name a star for braden as proposed by my new friend from wisconsin (alex) and my friend (hot amy).

the idea of naming a star really intrigued me. the mere thought that i could look up into the sky and see a ray of light known as braden is very comforting. it is almost metaphorical.

needless to say, i did some research on the naming of stars. according to wired magazine (which any tech geek knows... rocks), the "International Astronomical Union is the only scientific body authorized to name astronomical bodies." there are a lot of companies like the international star registry that are misleading consumers into thinking that their names for stars are universally accepted... when in reality the names are accepted only within the company database. so what one person calls "braden", may not be called "braden" by another company unless the international astronomical union says it is called "braden".

unfortunately, i have no connections to the international astronomical union. so, i ended up naming a star via www.freenameastar.com. the "braden michael" star is located in the house of libra. for anyone curious, the picture of the star is here.

anyway, karen really enjoyed the present. happy birthday karen! and hi there little b (braden)... i can now look up at you and see you twinkling! daddy loves you both!