Today is the birthday of my childhood friend Phyllis.

It's the second one since she passed away in August 2010.

I still miss her, as so many others do, but the pain has been receding for me since this day last year. I guess I was more melancholy then. I think I'm doing better now. It was, after all, barely two months since my friend had died. I was still grieving.

I think of Phyllis nearly every day — which is the most I can truthfully say about almost everyone I have lost except my mother (I think of her every day) — and, on this day, I kind of feel the way a mutual friend of ours apparently does.

On Facebook earlier today, he posted this:

"I miss you so freakin' much. Got that clock fixed you and Hawk gave me. I still laugh when I am able ..."

That, as I have mentioned before, may be the most enduring memory I have of Phyllis — the laughter. Even at the most somber points of my life, she could make me laugh.

And she would join in with a laugh of her own that made you feel warm all over like hot chocolate on a bitter winter day.

There must be others on this planet who can make you feel that way, but, if there are, I doubt that I will ever meet them. I do not expect to have that kind of laughter in my life again.

Phyllis was a laughter enabler. She could coax it from you, whether you wanted it to be coaxed or not.

It was just one of her many talents.

I, too, still laugh when I am able. I'm just not able as often as I once was.