RFB

It started as a joke.  Actually, I guess it really started as a Valentines Day card.

One of the cards I got for Gloria, that first year (I sent her one a day, all week) had a tired and slightly grumpy looking bear saying something like, "You are my reason for being, the ground of my existence, my everything," and then, when you opened the card, it said, "Now can I go back to sleep?"

So, one day soon after, when I walked into the reception area of the college, I asked, "Is my RFB here?"  The receptionist asked, "RFB?" and I replied "Reason For Being."  (The receptionist, young, as almost all of them are, went misty and said, "Ahhhhh ...... ")

They became our private names.  I called her RFB.  She called me MSR, which stood for "My Sweet Robbie."  I had been called Robbie as a young child, but nobody had called me that since I was ten.  (MSR was also a sort of anagram of my real initials, RMS.)  Until we unwisely told someone who started using them, so then they weren't private names anymore, so we stopped using them.

I no longer have my Reason For Being ...