!Birthday wishes
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agk's diary 
11 August 2023 @ 01:57 UTC
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written on iPad 4 (2020)
in bed with the fan running
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To celebrate my birthday, Evy took first daughter
to her meemaw's house and took me, roommate, and 3
friends caving in Rockcastle County.

In the heat it always feels like crossing an invis-
ible threshold to another world when you encounter
the temperature change, the 12C air emanating from
the cave you haven't yet seen.

It was a crawl on creek-tumbled broken limestone
rocks, some soaring rooms, mud-tubes, a landscape
of keyhole shaped twisty passages (all different),
and finally more and more water til the explorable
cave ended in a sump, the underwater river filling
the whole passage.

My friends, my wife sat on a gravely sandbank, cave
river gently flowing around them as I went in the
frigid water, swam around a curve, my skin burning
with the cold. In the solitude water clunked serene
against walls, ceiling 30cm above water's surface,
I rolled on my back, turned off my headlamp and 
floated.

Birthday wishes from Grammy:

  You have provided so many memories for me to
  think about on this special day---too many to
  mention. I do remember having a broken ankle when
  I went to McEwensville to try to carry you around

  You have delved into so many things---like your
  herbal book. Now you are a nurse. I am very proud
  of you.

From mom:

  Your path has taken you to some amazing places
  where you had significant impact on other lives &
  made the world a little bit better. It has also
  taken you to some dark & scary places filled with
  fear, anger & some destruction. Somehow you did
  have the talents, gifts & will to keep going into
  brighter ways of being in the world.

  40 years you've been walking the you-path. Some-
  times I walked with you, sometimes you were lost
  to my sight, but never to my heart. No one in the
  world is like you. That is why I continue to call
  you Grace.

From dad:

  Your mom wrote what I also think/feel about you.
  Every memory I have of you is an illustration of
  your sometimes stunning, sometimes exasperating
  uniqueness. Every emotion these memories evoke
  reminds me how much I've learned from you, how
  much being your dad has changed me for the better

  I cannot begin to imagine how many people have
  benefitted from their relationship with you.
  Whether it was a chance encounter with you as a
  street medic or a long-term friendship, you have
  been making the world a better place one relation
  ship at a time. And now that's happening as a
  wife + a mother.

  You are a gift, a blessing---certainly to me,
  certainly to others. May you be blessed as you
  celebrate 40 years and live into whatever is next

From Evy:

  My dearest Anna, my beautiful wife, the mother to
  my child, my faithful foot, Happy Birthday x2, 40
  and 16 [years sober].

  I'm so lucky to be the one to stand witness to
  your life as your husband/foot.

  You were in nursing school. And now you are a
  nurse. And a damn good one (Yes, you are)
  You teach and guide me, kicking and screaming.
  That's the kind of gal you are. You bring out the
  good in people like Dr pimple-popper extracts the
  pus of a zit.

  Our life is beautiful like a movie. A horror/
  thriller/comedy/romance. Two woman-things in love
  They have a baby. They organize a train. But by
  night...

Swam, sloshed, crawled with Evy, roommate, and 
new friend back towards the light and heat of the 
outside world. Shucked wet muddy clothes, helmets,
gloves, ate a snack on a rock in the sun.