To my Oldest Child

My firstborn turned 18 today.  Her birth was a wondrous event, and she was a wondrous child and is now a wonderful adult.  Because I’m still tired from the events of the past few weeks, I’ll just leave this brief tribute.

Oldest Daughter’s Earliest Days

Your first full sentence was “Read this book!” and you haven’t been without a book in your hand or close by ever since.

You are all about story.  At age 2, you said to me, “Mommy, say ‘Please tell me the story of the fishy.’  And I did say that, and you told me a LONG story.  You would often ask me, “Tell me a story without any words in a book.”  So I invented stories about your imaginary cousin Pakkaresh.  Your Dad told you long exotic stories weaving in characters from books.  As soon as you learned to write, you were writing stories.  And you have already written several books.

You have always loved music.  Your lyrics to Handel’s chorus “For Unto Us a Child is Born’ from Messiah were:

            And as name sholl be folded

            Wonderfool, countseler,

            Almight Pot, dee Everlasting Father, de Prince of Peace.

And you determined that this was sung by dolphins (sopranos), llamas (altos), cows (tenors) and elephants (basses).   And now you write your own poetry and compose your own music.

To my wonderful daughter: Happy Birthday!  I love you.