Happy Birthday, Rachel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0KlAHd7dGI&feature=related

Put to this in another tab and then come back and read this post
while you listen.

It's Strauss's Ein Heldenleben, and I heard this section from about
2:15 on in the Fritz Reiner CSO recording tonight on Exploring Music,
and it made me think of you, because I know you like it. (Of
course I was already thinking of you and thinking of your birthday.)
Still hearing it, I hoped you were listening, and we were enjoying it
together. You are a heroine to me, because you have opened your
life to beauty and have refused to just settle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BT3Q_BIIRJM&feature=related

Happy Birthday, Rachel, I love you.
I could never give you anything that compares
with the joy and new life you have given me.