Happy Birthday, Chip 01/31/21

I wrote Chip a poem for his 53rd birthday. I found the poem, with the balloons drawn with crayons on the paper on which it was printed, in a stack of items in the top drawer of his nightstand a month or so after he died. Since writing that poem in 2014, I wrote so many words to him in texts, emails and love notes jotted down on scraps of paper, but I never wrote him another poem. Today, this one came to me.

It would’ve been his 60th

This date ending in so many ones

No point concentrating on his last one

Nor that there will not be one more

Nor that I am now only one, since he lost his fight to live

Two minus one will always be one

There's simply no other way to do the math

But add together all the ones that reached out on his special day,

on the day that will always be his, and

that adds up and up and up

No one would ever deny this one day or take the honor and remembrance away from him

Every last one of them recalled stories and moments in time with him

Put all those ones on a list of people who remembered him

looked at old pictures of him

thanked him for being who he was

and for being their colleague, confidante, friend, father, brother, son, lover and spouse

Put all those ones in a line or column

all those who believe that he goes on because this one day of all the days will always be his

and that gives us a great sum

One day, we’ll all celebrate together again with the ones who’ve gone before us

And we'll remember the one day that matters most:

the day that one comes into this world to make a mark on it

and to say I am an “n” of one

and to say "I am the one that this world has been waiting for."