The First Birthday Card of the Day

Today is Bethany’s birthday. Despite both of our busy schedules and a lot of activity, I have planned and put together a fabulous evening full of good food, surprises and general birthday cheer.

But the first surprise of the day was delivered by Bethany. As she was leaving to go to her art class, she dropped a white envelope on my desk. It contained a special “un-birthday card.”

And I contained the card pictured to the right. It's a reproduction of St. George in Armour Being Kissed by Una, 1914 by Phoebe Anna Traquair. The painting was one of a set of three embroidered panels depicting the Red Cross Knight from Edmund Spenser's The Fairie Queen.

The card is significant for several reasons: first, that it portrays a woman blessing her knight with her affection (and not the other way around), second, that the Knight of the Red Cross was receiving the offered kiss as a reward for his selfless acts.

And the inscription was precious as well, but that’s private. :-)

So, now the stakes are raised …