Happy Birthday Darling Daughter

Today is my daughter's Birthday. I wish I could be with her and the family to celebrate, but that will have to wait another week or so when I am next in town to visit. I am reminded of many things about her, things that really started the day she was born. I was the first non-medical person to hold her, and I thought she was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen. I still feel that way. She was a perfect bundle of Joy! She is now a mature woman with a wonderful husband and two beautiful and delightful children, my grandchildren! I have had the good fortune to watch my daughter grow and mature. During that time, many memories have been stored away in my mind, all good memories of a wonderful daughter.



She has always loved animals. She loved loved her dog, Max, and he loved her. Max was definitely her dog. In fact, when Max was around he would become agitated and bark whenever someone hollered at his mistress, or he felt she was being threatened or in some kind of danger. Once, when my daughter was a toddler, she wondered toward the street. Max, ever watchful, moved next to her and bumped her so she fell on the patch of grass immediately before the street. She fell onto her diapered bottom and was none the worse for her fall. Max then stood over her so she could not get up and move off. She laughed and smiled at Max thinking this was a new game. She could do whatever she wanted to him and he would just sit there as she crawled over him. It was hard for us to put Max down as he reached old age and became ill. After all, he was her dog. Today, she has a golden retriever and a cat, Dewey and Shadow respectively. She would have a house full of dogs and cats and God knows what else, if she could get her husband to agree.

My daughter was always a good student. She came home from Kindergarten and had completed all the exercises in her book. She was disappointed to learn that there was no "new " book the next day. The book she had completed was for the year! She always did well in school and during her Junior year of High School, she announced that she was quitting school to go to college. She applied to 3 schools as I recall, was accepted at all of them and settled into an Honors Program. I was worried that if she ever left college, she would have no high school diploma and no degree. But, she graduated in 4 years with a double major, and earned her High School diploma based on her successful Freshman Year.

My daughter was always independent. It seemed that nothing stopped her from getting what she wanted, or keeping what she had. Many years after her graduation from college, she related a story about her being arrested for possession of alcohol by a minor. It seems she was holding a beer in a local bar and an agent from the ABC saw her and wrote her up. She lost her driver's license for 6 months. As she was telling the story, I remarked that I don't recall her ever not driving her car. She told me, "Dad, they took my license, not my car." That was, and is, so like her.

My daughter is a wonderful dancer, having started Ballet lessons when she was 5. She loved it and she was fortunate to have a very good and dedicated instructor. She eventually made it to dancing on point, toeshoes! She danced beautifully and I have the video of her performances to prove it.

Today, she is a mother and wife and career woman. She manages all that and still has time to talk with me once in a while. I always cherish the time we can spend together because memories come from those times. I am very lucky to have such a wonderful daughter. My Darling Daughter!