Wow! Happy Birthday! Can you believe you’re fifty-five?

Where do I start? Today marks a new beginning for you. Only time will tell how it’ll move forward, but it’s a step that you have to take. You deserve it. 

When you first moved here with no family around, you stepped courageously into the unknown. How long has it been? Twenty-three years! For twenty-three years, you lived, worked hard, ventured, grew, fought hard, and endured courageously. Even at those times when you could just have given up. 

The last fifteen years have taught you a whole lot about yourself. Things that you wouldn’t have thought you’re capable of doing, enduring, or achieving, you did. It has not been easy, but nobody knows that but yourself. 

I’m here to tell you that through the years you’ve learned a lot and grown a lot, from many silent battles that only you knew about. 

Are you happy? 

What is happiness, by the way, you asked?

Is it a state or a feeling? 

Is it acquired through achievements, proving oneself, battles won, or having those quiet moments within ourselves and realizing that you gave it your best shot but still…?

Today, you missed Dy even more. I wonder what Dy would tell me if he is still here with us? 

Birthdays have a way of bringing back grief. 

Anyway, I have a lot to tell you, but allow me to thank you instead for living courageously, not only for yourself but mostly for your daughter.  She is, after all, your greatest blessing and achievement.

I’ll write to you again in a year or two or three or who knows when….

Hopefully, I’ll have a lot of good things to share.

Happy Birthday!

All my love,

Your very best self