Helvetica

So the other day I opened the mail to find a t-shirt I'd ordered with the word helvetica written across the chest in white. When I saw the sleek san serif, the one that once made order out of a chaotic design world, I thought of you because I knew you'd get the irony, think it was funny that the mother of all typefaces was on a t-shirt, and because I knew you'd call it a typeface not a font. That's just one of the things I love about you.

Here are a few more:

You are the inspiration for rope swings, truck rides in the country, long meals that last three hours, feet on the table and salad eaten with fingers, swimming on a hot summer day, planting improbable gardens. You take in stray pups like me, feed them, house them, marry them off and welcome them home, always. You are as at ease drinking fancy wine as you are drinking PBR and you can talk literary smack with the best of them and still break down about J. Lo. You can take one on this chin, and this is certainly one of those times, but I know you'll get up, pissed off and swinging.

I can honestly say that my life would not be what it is if you were not in it.

It is for all of these reasons that you are going to be okay -- there is just no other option. You have dinner parties to throw, shoes to buy. And I know two little girls who need Aunt Jess to tell them stories of the phamily pharm and rope swings.

I wish I could bring you a stiff cup of coffee to your bedroom in the pointy house on the hill and tell you, while looking at the million shades of green out of your window, that this is all a bad dream. But I can tell you this: We are here, we will be there soon and you are going to kick this.

Sending nothing but love to you and Mark.

Savage