April 15 Isn't Just for Taxes Anymore

Dear Steve,

Thank you for making April 15 something more than a day to pay taxes. And thank you for your love.

The gift of this heart-shaped necklace with diamond chips was so sweet. You and I were never much for pomp and circumstance, so sliding a plain white box over beside my dinner plate last night was as formal as we've ever gotten with our romance. Perhaps we are like the couple that Rogers and Hart were thinking about when they wrote, My Romance.



Gee, hearing Bernadette sing, reminds me of that time we watched her sing Send in the Clowns and as she did tears, real tears flowed down her cheeks, and we were charmed and touched.

Extraordinary moments occur ordinarily. An evening, in a go-green apartment, a rowdy puppy-dog romping, tax forms, receipts, Schedule C's, W-2's, seemed to matter intensely. The forms were so critical. And then the things that only appeared to be making April 15 extraordinary fell away, with a few words.

And then we were thinking, not backward on the economic exigencies of the last 12 months, but forward to a life, potentially, entwined and returning jointly, for as long as we both shall live. We will live, (if I said yes?) uninterruptedly together, always, with memories of the first dinner in that crazy basement apartment, you and me, oh, and Phil was there, too, and Leah the dog, and we talked and Phil walked me to the train station, and Phil scolded you for being rude, but I was, nonetheless, enthused about you and wanting to meet again soon, even though my thin shoes were wet from the walk in the rain.

And then we were thinking forward to a marriage, but Leah bounded in with that first interruption to prove that together is never without interruption even by dogs needing to be walked in the back alley of a big city where, even then, there was not privacy but the passing company of a gregarious neighbor with a doberman. And the mist of the evening glowed in a distant lamplight and our breaths took in, not just the night breeze, but the alley-air reminders of yesterday's supper-trash from apartment 12g and even the diaper refuse from 8b. But that was long ago and prescient of other interruptions to come.

And back in the apartment I said, "Yes, yes," and we fell together into loving arms. But not for long, did we embrace, because it was, after all, April 15, and we had yet to check the filing status box, "Single," and walk to the post office before the midnight deadline.


My darling Steven, I am so overwhelmed that you chose me to be the one and only one with whom you would say, "Yes, married filing jointly" for the rest of your life. Thank you for that, for the beautiful necklace reminder, and for your love.

XOXOXOX
Betsy