A Letter on Your 16th Birthday

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In a few weeks my daughter will turn 22 years old. I thought my readers might be interested in reading the letter that I wrote to her on her 16th birthday. Please leave a comment below and share with your friends. Or, maybe write your own letter to your daughter.

Dear Meme the Monkey:

 On the occasion of your 16th birthday I have some thoughts I want to share with you. It seems like yesterday that I loaded your mom into the Volvo station wagon and drove 80 mph through red lights at Howell Mill Rd. to Piedmont Hospital. In 48 years I don\’t know of any other moment where I have been more scared. Scared of the hospital; scared of the delivery process; scared of the blood and guts; scared something would go wrong; scared of whether I\’d pass out and leave your Mom alone.  I remember the top of your head popping out. It was amazing and awful at the same time. And then you were here-with your murder cap and blanket and nothing was ever the same. 

 There are so many amazing memories in 16 years. I replay these memories in my head every day, trying to hang onto them. It is like trying to hug air. I want to share some of them with you.  But first I want to thank you for the happiness you’ve brought to your mother and me-and scores of other people. You simply bring joy to anyone you meet.

 Some of my very favorite memories are associated with you:

•  Like staying up with you all night at 6 months old-watching Baby Einstein 15 times. It was the night before my first all-day meeting at UPS. You couldn’t sleep.

•  Like watching you have a seizure at age two and thinking you were dead only to see you bounce back-good as new.  

•  Like the time that we were giggling in your room.  You got so tickled that you threw up for the first time.  You looked right at me in astonishment and asked, “Dada, what was that?”

•  Like driving you to the father-daughter dance at PDC with Jane and Marion when it was 31 degrees-with the top down and the music loud.

•  Like taking Saturday afternoons to paint pottery and then drinking my coffee from those cups for ten years.  

•  Like walking around Hanover west 1,000 times. The first 500 in the little red car. 

•  Like doing our annual Halloween ring & run at the Shuford’s, Glasgow’s and Jones’s, complete in black-head to toe-so nobody could see us.

•  Like watching you get on the bus for the first time. And then secretly following the bus to Warren T. Jackson and sneaking into the school so I could watch you on your first day of Kindergarten. 

•  Like watching you get 25 stitches in your foot and wondering if I was gonna vomit on your doctor. 

•  Like taking you in the boat at PDC and washing your hot dog in the lake cause it squirted out if the bun and rolled across the floor of the boat.  

•  Like the time I fell asleep on a Saturday afternoon while you and Elizabeth played. When I woke up you were both naked and painted from head to toe. 

•  Like watching you lay in Paw Paw\’s lap watching TV at Valley Road cause you were sick and he was dying.  

•  Like seeing how sad you were when Paw Paw died and not being able to tell you that I was sad too. 

•  Like watching your first solo at FPC and wondering how a sound so beautiful could come from something I made. I can’t even hum.

•  Like watching you take Prissy the Dog to the vet to put her down cause I just couldn\’t do it. I loved that little brown dog.

•  Like watching you grow up into the beautiful person you are; full of love and hope and kindness and generosity and empathy and faith.

 Meme, always remember that life is good and fun and exciting.  Roll down the windows; turn up the music. Laugh. Cherish your friends. Watch the sunset. Call your mother. Jump in the ocean.  Worry less. Write. Sing and dance. Love the mountains and dogs and chocolate milkshakes and good music and silence and rain and sunsets and God and Mexican food. Love all things, except money.

 And always remember the family motto: “Nothing beats nice”.

 And know that you are something more, something greater, than your lowest times. Life is not always rainbows and butterflies, but there is goodness in the struggle. Cloudy days will come. On a cloudy day you will ask yourself, “What have I been, and done and meant to the world?”

 When that day comes, I want you to take comfort in one thing. You filled one man’s days with more joy than he was due. A joy unknown in all my prior years. If you never accomplish another thing in your life, you will have done this. You will have exponentially and meaningfully increased the happiness in one man\’s life. And that is enough. 

 I love you.

 Daddy (Dada)