Dear Reader:

I can’t believe it has been three years since Mandy called to tell me that Jakie had decided to come on my birthday…I was overcome with emotion…What is better than one birthday?…two…together!

There will always be a special bond between our birthdays….many (emphasis) many years apart! I came across this John O’Donohue poem (my favorite Irish poet) on birthdays and I want to share it now…to you Jakie!

For Your Birthday (John O’Donohue) Excerpts

Blessed be the mind that dreamed the day
The blueprint of your life
Would begin to glow on earth,
Illuminating all the faces and voices
That would arrive to invite
Your soul to growth.

Praised be your father and mother,
Who loved you before you were,
And trusted to call you here
With no idea who you would be.

Blessed be the gifts you never notice,
Your health, eyes to behold the world,
Thoughts to countenance the unknown,
Memory to harvest vanished days,
Your heart to feel the world’s waves,
Your breath to breathe the nourishment
Of distance made intimate by earth.

On this echoing-day of your birth,
May you open the gift of solitude
In order to receive your soul;
Enter the generosity of silence
To hear your hidden heart;
Know the serenity of stillness
To be enfolded anew
By the miracle of your being

………………………….

Hopefully I will have time to get at least some photos in the post today from all the excitement yesterday! (And off for Rhodes’ birthday today!)

So until tomorrow…Thank you Father for commemorations of our life through you.

“Today is my favorite day” Winnie the Pooh