Today the candles wait for hands
that taught the match its flame.
Eighty years should have arrived
with laughter spilling through the house,
with tea gone cold from too much talking,
with stories told twice
and loved both times.
Instead, the chair remembers you quietly.
Dar,
the world keeps turning with its ordinary noise,
but some days still stop at your name.
A birthday can become a doorway
not into celebration alone,
but into all the moments that should have followed:
another winter coat by the door,
another joke at dinner,
another call beginning with
“Are you eating properly?”
I imagine eighty on you gently.
Silver at the temples,
eyes still carrying that impossible mixture
of kindness and command.
I imagine the cake,
the stubborn refusal to make a fuss,
the smile you tried to hide
when everyone sang anyway.
Grief is strange like that
it keeps counting.
Keeps marking the years
for someone no longer here to wear them.
But love counts too.
It counts every lesson folded into my voice,
every habit inherited without noticing,
every quiet strength
that first belonged to you.
So even now,
even absent,
you arrive.
And somewhere beyond all our reaching,
I hope this day finds you whole,
held in a light without ending,
knowing you are still celebrated
by hearts that never learned
how to stop making room for you.
Happy 80th birthday Dar 🤍
Lauren Willis
18/05/2026
