Dear Greg

Please accept this note in lieu of the birthday card I didn’t get you (I can’t get past the notion that greeting cards are a money making scam).

So now you are 42. Your 30th birthday doesn’t seem too long ago, when I threw you a surprise party at Harbour Lights and got them to show Jaws just for you. We had only been together four months and I have no idea how I managed to keep that secret planning to myself. It’s worth noting you have kept the secret for 12 years that you in fact knew all along what was happening as a friend had let it slip. You have always been very good at keeping secrets when necessary.

And here’s a secret of my own; there was a time not too long ago I didn’t think you would see your 42nd birthday. In fact, I hadn’t been sure you would get to celebrate your 40th with the news delivered just three weeks before being so devastating and final. These milestones flick by so quickly in every day life, but I savour them. I watch them as if I’m viewing a Cine Film of my own life. It’s such a bittersweet experience, to feel these extremes of love and gratitude, fear and sadness all at the same time.

I hear people complain about getting older and having another birthday and I want to scream in their faces. It is a privilege not afforded to everyone. As you get older, there seems to be fewer times to celebrate occasions, unlike our constant party girl Dali, invited to a shindig every weekend it seems. Maybe we need to look to children for how to celebrate our birthdays; weeks and weeks of excitement, a special outfit, a need to bring friends together for laughing and dancing and such enormous joy at being one year older.

So Peggs, let’s roll into your 42nd year with all the joy and thrills of a five year old, excited for another dance around the sun. You deserve all the frolics you can muster and I have my silver boots waiting in the wings, ready to join you on this adventure. This is the year you share an exhibition space with Da Vinci and have your poetry published. I couldn’t be more proud of your 42nd year and it’s only just begun.

Love Slice

* Stacey Heale has left her career as a fashion lecturer to focus on her two lively little girls and husband, Delays frontman Greg Gilbert, who was diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer in November 2016. She launched the viral campaign Give4Greg to raise funds for lifesaving treatment: gofundme.com/give4greg. You can read more at her blog, www.beneaththeweather.com