17 April 2021 – Daver was a 17. He was born on April 17th. He died on June 17th in 2017. Anytime he had to choose a number, he chose 17. If it wasn’t available, he chose 71. Motorcycle for racing, race cars, combinations, everything. He did have to choose 72 for one race car because 17 and 71 were both taken. He was not happy about it, and the car never performed as well as he would have like either. He blamed the number, of course.

Today would have been Daver’s 51st birthday. His fourth birthday since his death. He was never big on his birthday. He didn’t need to celebrate for a fortnight like I do. He just wanted family dinner, steaks on the grill and yellow cake with chocolate frosting. In honor of his birthday, I will share some of my favorite Daver stories.

Daver and I meet. Daver and I met in band when I was a freshman clarinet player, and he was a junior tenor saxophone player. One day in band class, the band director put Daver in charge of giving the clarinet’s a test on our scales. I refused to play because I was not prepared, so Daver gave me an F. After class, I complained to a mutual friend that Daver was such a jerk. The friend laughed and said that Daver had been flirting with me because he likes me. Well, that surprised me! After that, Daver stopped talking to me and avoided me in the halls. So, I walked right up to him at his locker a few days later, and I said, “You didn’t have to stop talking to me just because I know you like me.” After that, he asked me on a date. We dated for three months until I made a teenage girl mistake of flirting with another boy. He broke up with me, humiliated me at Busch Gardens. That was that.

Sense of humor. Daver was very fond of his own sense of humor. He loved making “dad jokes,” especially the same ones, over and over again. The difficult part of that is I had no sense of humor. I was always so serious, and I did not laugh at much. Every time we were around other people, they loved his jokes, and they would comment on how funny Daver was. I had heard every joke so many times that they were no longer even sort of funny. I hated them. Fortunately for Daver and me, my sense of humor got better as time went on. Daver’s favorite funny guy thing he ever did happened the day after we got engaged. We were at Universal Studios Florida, and he, his brother and his friend all decided to do this Star Trek adventure. They were each given a part, and they were on a set and given lines to act out. Of course, Daver was the captain, and he could not help himself; he had to ad-lib his lines to make them funny. Even his Vulcan brother had a hard time keeping a straight face.

Why do I call him Daver? He and his friends used to love water skiing, and Daver was really good. He was especially good at skiing without skis, barefoot skiing. His friends took to calling him Super Daver because of how he looked when he did it. I only called him Daver because there was no way I was going to tell him he was super every single day. 😜

To memorialize our favorite 17, shortly after Daver’s death, Shelby got a tattoo of the number 17 on her wrist. It was a perfect choice. On the first anniversary of Daver’s death, Meghan and I followed suit and got similar tattoos ourselves. Meghan got the Roman numeral XVII on her ankle, and I got 17 on the side of my left ring finger. A couple of people asked me, “What if you fall in love again? Don’t you worry that the guy won’t like that tattoo on your wedding ring finger?” I told them that any guy worth being in love with would get it, and it would not be a problem. Daver was a big part of my life, and for many years he was the most important part of it. He will always be a part of me.

We miss you Daver, Happy Birthday!