For Elizabeth · happy birthday
I could have sent a happy birthday text. You have been too much to me this past year for a text to be enough. So I made you a little world instead.
Queen Elizabeth
Happy birthday.
I was in 400 level. You were in 200. We met as Provost and Assistant Provost in the Ushering Unit. I just wanted to know the people I worked with. With you, I started noticing the way you think before I noticed anything else.
“I noticed the way you think before I noticed anything else.”
The story · arrows or dots to skip
Covenant · 2024
I was in 400 level. You were in 200. We met as Provost and Assistant Provost in the Ushering Unit. I just wanted to know the people I worked with. With you, I started noticing the way you think before I noticed anything else.
We were friends because of the work for a long time before we were friends in any other way.
Where it started · 01 / 08
November · December
I was overwhelmed. I hired you as my PA. You could have just done the job — replies, Bible study, announcements, the admin pieces — and clocked out. You didn’t. You made it thoughtful. You kept the small things from falling through. I don’t think I said thank you enough back then. I’m saying it now.
Looking back, that’s also where I started trusting you with the parts of my life that mattered.
PA season · 02 / 08
Late February
I usually stonewall when I’m not ready to be open. I’ve been doing it for years. You insisted gently, again and again, until I stopped pretending the brave face was the whole thing. I told you what was actually going on. It didn’t fix anything. It just made it feel less heavy.
Vulnerability with you stopped feeling like exposure. It started feeling like being received.
The tunnel · 03 / 08
March
I didn’t have all the language yet. I just knew I was fond of you and that something had started, and I said something close to it for the first time. Looking back at how I tiptoed around it makes me smile now.
The yellow chair. The white dress. You looking ridiculously, easily happy.
Your birthday · 04 / 08
Easter Convention
We sat together. Walked back together. Held hands without making it loud. None of it needed a label, but all of it was a choice. It felt like care that respected the season.
Closeness with care. Soft, never unserious.
April · 05 / 08
Whenever it mattered
When something felt off, one of us would say it. "I’m uncomfortable with the silence." Then the day could open back up. We kept that small rule and it quietly held everything else together.
I don’t think I’ve had that with many people.
Ongoing · 06 / 08
Graduation · Thanksgiving
We took a lot of frames that day. A few of them said something neither of us did out loud. Those ones live behind a small lock further down. I figured they should stay between us.
Held from behind. Caught smiling. That was enough.
End of an era · 07 / 08
After school
After I left school, we just kept talking. Almost every day for the first two months. Calls about nothing, calls about everything, calls where one of us fell asleep. I quietly liked being your wallpaper more than I let on.
Distance, never disconnection.
Distance · 08 / 08
Long rants, random gist, late-night brain dumps. You never made me feel like I was too much. I hope I made you feel the same way when it was the other direction.
“Talk to me. Not the brave-face version. The real one.”
“I’m uncomfortable with the silence. Can we just talk about it?”
“Random gist, vision, future. Somehow laughter again.”
It was usually “here’s what I need to do, what about you?” and then we’d just sit on the call and work. No small talk needed. That’s how I learned what being close to you actually looked like.
task list
task list
The call wasn’t the point. The point was that we were doing it together.
CMSS classroom. Mostly empty. We’d work, read, plan the week. Sometimes I’d sleep, sometimes you would. We didn’t really go there to talk. The talking just always happened anyway.
I think that’s part of how we stayed close in such a busy season. We weren’t scheduling each other in. We were just in the same room.
A lot of small library moments. You reading. Me working. And then one of us would stop and ask the other how they were — not the polite version, the real one — and actually wait for the answer.
I’ve had a lot of conversations in my life. There aren’t many people I’ve said the real thing to.
We were in chapel three or four times a week. Always somewhere on the route, always somehow finding each other in the middle of all the running. The whole inside joke started there. I still smile when I hear the phrase.
The bus was cold. You were tired. You put your head on my shoulder and I held you while you slept. That was the first time I felt like we’d quietly said something to each other without saying anything.
You wanted to try aluko. The people only spoke French. We waited almost two hours, roped in two friends to translate, and at the end of all of it — it was just plantain. Just plantain. We laughed for days.
also that day
Someone actually asked for your hand in marriage. I got defensive way too fast. I’m still figuring out what that reaction was telling me. I think you probably already know.
The dress, the money, the tired nights, the times you wanted to tear the whole thing apart. We were on calls late, you working on the dress, me on the startup. You wanted to quit more than once. You didn’t.
I really wish I’d been able to do more for you that month than I could. I keep thinking about it.
Homecoming. Thanksgiving. Heroes Conference. The day‑with‑an‑outfit moments. I’m putting these here together because every one of them was us, somewhere on campus, doing the next thing — and somehow always next to each other.
I took a picture of you at the garden, reaching for the yellow flowers. Neither of us said it out loud, but it felt like a promise we’d keep tending whatever this is.
I still keep going back to that frame.
I picked a handful of pictures I didn’t want to put out in the open. They live behind a small gate. You’ll know the password.
—
Almost every day for the first two months. Calls about nothing, calls about everything, calls where one of us fell asleep. You made me your wallpaper. I noticed. I never said anything but I noticed every single time.
your lock screen
mid-laugh
Every frame from the past year I could find. Drag through them.
Hero
You on your birthday. Yellow chair. White dress. The one I keep going back to.
Covenant University · the work
One of the first selfies from Ushering Unit days. The work before everything else.
Everywhere & Nowhere
Me in chapel. You took the picture. Proof of the inside joke.
Sunday upstairs classroom
Us in the CMSS classroom. The Sunday 3–6 room.
Library moments
You reading in the library. I love this picture more than I can explain.
Shiloh
Us at Shiloh. Back to back. Calm.
Shiloh · two hours, one plantain
Us with the friends who helped translate the French. After two hours of waiting on aluko. For plantain.
Redefinition · still showed up
You in the satin dress with the fan. I think this is the one where you look most like yourself.
Stay back · TTG · the garden
You at the garden, reaching for the yellow flowers. The night before TTG ended. I keep this one close.
Homecoming
Matching black formal for homecoming. I think we cleaned up pretty well.
Thanksgiving
The thanksgiving selfie. Peace sign. Pursed lips.
Thanksgiving
Another thanksgiving frame from the same day.
Convention moments
Heroes Conference together.
After school · distance
Your lock screen. Us in agbada / white dress. I noticed.
After school · distance
You mid-laugh on a video call. Caught mid-sentence.
I could have just sent you a happy birthday text.
Honestly, you have been too much to me this past year for a text to be enough.
You came in through the work — Ushering, the calls, departmental stuff — and somehow you ended up being one of the safest people I have.
You listened when I didn’t want to talk. You asked again when I said I was fine.
You let me see you stressed about Redefinition, tired on the bus, asleep on calls, sometimes annoyed at me, sometimes ridiculously happy. None of it ever made you less to me. It made you more.
I’m not trying to make this define us.
I just wanted you to know I see you. I’m proud of you. I’m grateful for you. And I’m really glad we somehow met inside all that responsibility and ended up here.
Happy birthday, Elizabeth.
To your joy. To your vision. To the garden God is teaching us both to keep tending.
— Demi
