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Sarah has such an excellent laugh.  It's the same way people laugh in comic books: "Ha ha ha!  Hee hee hee!  Ho ho ho!"  To see it written down, yeah, it looks ridiculous, but it's a warm, natural thing to hear - and it's one of my favourite sounds in the world.  We've been with one another for about a hundred years now.  She's heard all of my stories.  She's heard all of my jokes.  At this point I'm just putting different spins on the same tired material.  She'll give a polite laugh when it's something she's heard a dozen times, but on those rarer instances when I surprise her with something original and she really laughs, oh man. I love it so much.  No one else's laugh sounds like that: not her parents, and not our kids.  Our kids have inherited my laugh, I think. It's guttural, with more consonants than vowels: "Huhn, huhn, huhn."  Don't get me wrong.  They're sweet and I love them to bits, but they laugh like a bunch of goons.

And she's tough!  Not mixed martial arts tough (although we can both agree that would be awesome), she's resilient, and she doesn't take any shit. At heart, she's a people-pleaser, but she's got that perfect amount of choleric in her. I'm a people-pleaser too, but 99.9% of my behavior stems from trying to avoid conflict at all cost.  Sarah knows when to fight for something.  She'll never rile someone up for the sake of it, but when someone's taking advantage of someone else, or when someone's shooting their mouth off, or when friends or family are at odds for no good reason, she has no qualms about stepping in where she's needed.  This family is in good hands.  She takes care of us in so many ways.

Sarah, at thirty-*cough* years old, you're the best version of you I've met yet so far.  I can't wait for what's next.
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Beth said…
Dave, I love these birthday posts you write for Sarah! They are always so heartfelt and beautiful.

Happy birthday, Sar!
11:35 pm
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