Happy Birthday?

I love that Facebook tells you about your friends' birthdays. I also love that Facebook tells you when a mutual friend wishes your friend a happy birthday.

There's the moment when you go to your friend's timeline, and see some birthday wishes that make it seem, well, like your friend has passed away.

Then, there's the moment you realize your friend did indeed, pass away.

This happened yesterday.

A lovely woman (I really am on the fence about using the word lovely; it doesn't seem...big enough, but she was a lovely woman, inside and out) who I knew in person recently passed away. Recently passed away, like, last week recently. And yesterday was (would have been?) her birthday.

We weren't exactly friends; I never saw her socially, although I did accidentally run into her at a Sabres game a couple of years ago. But, I did know her, and I did like her. And now she's gone.

So now the maudlin/nostalgic/sentimental me is dwelling on whether I ever told her how much I appreciated her doing a thankless job. I like to believe I did, but I can't be sure. Did she know what a difference she made? Did she care what anyone thought? Why would it matter to her what I thought, anyway? 

I will always remember her smile which she so often wore. Sounds so cliché, doesn't it? We mention a smile when someone passes. But in this case, she was almost always smiling, at least when I saw her. Always cheerful, always trying to be helpful. She was a genuine person, a kind person. And she smiled often. And when she smiled, her whole body smiled.