“You shouldn’t end your birthday alone,” he said.
Those words affected me more deeply than he probably realized.
My own family had apparently forgotten the date, yet a stranger I had met only hours earlier was making an effort to turn the evening into something memorable.
At least, that was what I believed at the time.
We Continued the Evening Together
After leaving the bar, Daniel and I walked through the city
for a long time.
The evening felt completely different from the lonely birthday I had expected only a few hours earlier.
I had decided to stay at a hotel rather than return home late, and Daniel offered to accompany me there.
What happened afterward was something I never intended to discuss with my children, neighbors or anyone else.
For the first time in years, I allowed myself to stop worrying about my age or what other people might think.
