Remember in my last blog post how I said my brain is like a box of chocolates? Well Forrest, you may be a simple man, but I think you got the saying right – life is too.

Right now I’m supposed to be in the Dominican Republic at Erin and Brent’s wedding. Today is Will’s birthday and we were going to celebrate by relaxing on the beach, enjoying the sun, and I was secretly trying to figure out how to get the server at dinner to stick a candle in Will’s dessert.

Metaphorically speaking, I was expecting a delicious Fannie Mae Trinidad (yum!). What I got was the nasty Caramel Cream (vomit!).

Will’s grandpa had been fighting pulmonary fibrosis for awhile and on Tuesday night, he took a turn for the worse. We cancelled our trip, thanked our lucky stars for trip insurance, and went to the hospital the next day. This morning, finally, Will’s grandpa’s constant struggle to breathe ended.

So today, I’m celebrating the lives of two great men: One man who is the center of my universe and another man who made that possible not only by simply existing, but by helping to mentor, influence and mold Will into the man I love.

With the irony of birth and death floating around in this situation, I realize I’m dangling on the precipice of a black hole of symbolism and meaning here, so I’ll take a step back. All of this sharing of my feelings is making me develop an eye twitch.

But while Will’s 28^th birthday may be marked by the death of someone he loves, he and everyone else in the family were marked by the life of someone who really loved them.

So cheers to Will’s birthday and Grandpa Wall’s life! Two things definitely worth celebrating.

Now who’s got the champagne? (Hey, if I can’t have a mojito on the beach…)