I write and publish birthday letters for the kids. You can read Annabel’s 3rd birthday letter here. And here are Oliver’s, Theodore’s, and Deefer’s recent letters.
I saw her on the DART, en route to the Aviva. A brown-haired girl in a red bow and Taylor friendship bracelets. Her aunt was sitting next to her. She was probably the one who punched in her debit card number on the Ticketmaster site, who grimaced when she saw a 37% fee per ticket, to move some 1s and 0s from the server farm in Charleston, West Virginia to her flat in Inchicore.
But she did it anyway. Because she wasn’t just buying the concert. It was for the months of excitement. The anticipation. The lifetime of memories bought and paid for.
That’s where the value exchange happened.
We don’t have that thing yet, AB, you and I. I think we’ll find it, though.
You are your mother’s daughter. You’re the image of her, particularly when you’re sprawled like a starfish on our bed, grasping at Theodore’s hand.
And when you bury yourself in a puzzle. Or how you refuse everyone’s help.
But you’re mine too.
I saw it on the school bike ride day, determined to keep up with Oliver and all the other Adaire kids. Them on their two-wheelers or stabilizers, you on your balance bike, legs scurrying Roadrunner-cartoon-like, desperate to keep up. You were roasting in your raincoat and sweater but refused to take them off, unwilling to yield a second that you didn’t have to.
I see it in the way you ride down the hills at the school or the way you beg me to let you go down the verts at the skate park. Surrounded by young men who know well enough to steer clear of you, the 3-year-old on in the pink helmet.
We don’t have our thing, yet.
(Though, I do think you’d make a terrific BJJ player 😀)
Just the hope of something.
Happy 4th birthday, my love.
