12/9/82. It's one of those numbers that's burned into my head. 6/28/75, 6/30/79, 1/10/1954, 1/20/09 are other dates in my life that I've memorized, after years of completing forms and applications, and celebrating annually family milestones. Also included are Social Security numbers, addresses, phone numbers and now email addresses.
But I digress. I think of this because the one of whom I wish to speak has a prodigious memory, a small gift in a pantheon of personal gifts which she can rightly claim.
Her memory is so good, her friends used to call her "Rain Man," after the character played by Dustin Hoffman in the movie of the same name.
She's extraordinarily good at spelling, like me. She's won contests. To this day, Ev Larabell insists that the tester at the oral bee mispronounced the word "fanaticism" as "phonaticism," causing Kelly to misspell the word. Otherwise, Kelly might have moved on to the next level in the spelling contest. As it was, she was the best speller that year at Savage Elementary School.
She was the co-winner of the John May award for St. Anthony CYO basketball in eighth grade. That same year, she was voted MVP of South Middle School's basketball team.
Among the LaVaute nuclear family, she is by far the most photogenic. Her smile can literally light up a room.
She loves to laugh. She and her brother Matthew can quote long passages from the movie "Bad Boys" with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, and recently she's made me laugh, a lot, with FB posts from the "Vacation" movies with Chevy Chase.
She was voted best female dancer at Belleville High School in her senior year, a school where she played basketball, soccer and track, and was in the band.
She can write. Oh, she can write. Imagination, just the right touch, a sense of caring and creativity. I miss seeing it more often, it's so good.
The thing of which I'm the most fond, however, is something she shares with her brother. She's a good friend; no, a great friend. I have admired that in my children for many years. In that, they're like their mother. Thank goodness.
Happy birthday, Kel, to a fabulous daughter of whom I'm ferociously proud, who continues to amaze and delight me most every day. Happy, happy birthday.
