Tag Archives: birthday

Weekly Photo Challenge: Variations on a Theme

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In my mind, there can only be one theme for today. Today is my daughter Susan’s birthday. I’ve been photographing her for 33 years now. She is one of my very favorite subjects, not simply because she has a beautiful smile and is ridiculously photogenic, but also because she is an extraordinarily caring person. You can see how her warmth touches the other subjects in these photos. 

Engrossed in escape

Happy Birthday, my darling daughter! May your endlessly creative variations continue for many more years. 

Variations on a Theme

Happy Birthday, Mom!

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Two years ago, I did a blog project that I called “80 Years in 8 Days” which was a birthday gift for my mother, who lives half a continent away in California. Today, she is celebrating the 82nd anniversary of her natal day. She is still my favorite friend to call on the phone and talk to about all kinds of interrelated subjects, artistic, intellectual, gastronomical, familial and otherwise. We usually take no less than an hour in our visit, and at its conclusion she says, “Oh, honey! Talking to you is like a month in the country! Which country, I’m not sure….”

When a daughter and her mother get along famously, it is cause for celebration, even if they aren’t celebrities like Carrie and Debbie. I am fortunate to be in a grand relationship with a grand mother. If you care to get to know her better, take a look at the 8 days of blog posts: Day 1 – Ten Background Bits, Day 2 – Ten Family Foods, Day 3 – Ten Musical Memories, Day 4 – Ten Parenting Principles, Day 5 – Ten Silly Sayings, Day 6 – Ten Administrative Aids , Day 7 – Ten Lessons Learned, and Day 8 – Ten Inspirational Instructions. If reading these gives you any renewed awareness, gratitude or appreciation for your own relationship with your mother, then then this New Year’s Birthday gift will be doubled. Thank you!

Granne Louise

80 Years in Eight Days — Day Number Eight: 10 Inspirational Instructions

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This is the end — the last day of the year, the last installment of my mother’s birthday project, and the last entry on this blog for 2014.  My mother is 80 years old today.  Here is a list of 10 Inspirational Instructions that she has embodied throughout her life.  They are also serving as my New Year’s Resolutions for 2015.  My mom is indeed an inspiration, and I hope she’ll keep breathing life in for many more years.

1) “Trust God, but do your homework.”  This quote she always attributed to her own mother.  I think it’s a great motto to pass on from generation to generation.  In essence, it acknowledges our humility but does not absolve us from responsibility.  We are not in control of all things, but we are in control of some.  When you’re able to dance on that line with grace, you’re living wisely.

2) Regularly make the effort to right-size and divest.  This comes from her organizational practice, and it’s a great reminder at the end of every year.  I’ve watched mom go through “weeding out” stages my whole life.  She systematically keeps her possessions under control: clothes, books, papers, housewares, pantry stock, music, everything.  Steve & I are furiously reducing inventory at the book business now.  Part of the fun is putting those things you divest into the hands of someone who will use and appreciate them.  Recycle generously!

3) Gather experiences, not things.  I remember my mother answering all inquiries about what she wanted for a gift with some version of this philosophy.  She wanted something to live, not something to dust.  I hope she gets lots of what she wants for a long time. 

photo by Josh

photo by Josh

4) “Look wider still.”  This is a Girl Scout challenge from International Thinking Day… “and when you think you’re looking wide, look wider still.”  My mother loves this slogan.  It applies so well to being broad-minded, tolerant, open and forever learning.  It’s a big world.  Even after 80 years, there’s a wider view to see.

5) “Only connect.”  This phrase became the name of a BBC quiz show in 2008.  It is derived from E. M. Forster’s novel Howard’s End, where a character says, “Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect, and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to either, will die.”  The phrase has also been used to describe the liberal education, which celebrates and nurtures human freedom.  I just learned these references from Google.  From mom, I learned that rush of joy, that flush of understanding and the pure delight of living that shows in her face when she utters this phrase at the end of a stimulating discussion.  That I learned years ago.  

6) Don’t disown your own.  “Only connect” applies to people, too, even and especially those near and dear who have a greater capacity to disappoint us.  Looking wider than our expectations and our attachments allows us to see that we do not exist in isolation except by our own dogmatic choosing.  Long after I learned this from watching mom, I heard it echoed in the writing of Thich Nhat Hahn.  “We inter-are,” he says.  The cosmos is held together in inter-being.  Acting as though we’re separate and separating in judgment is an act of violence against the Universe.  Peace is understanding there is no duality. 

photo by Josh

photo by Josh

7) Let go; let God.  My mother has always had the capacity for anxiety.  She likes to do things “the right way”, she pays attention to details, and she fears the usual things from failure to death.  So do I.  Face it, we live in a pretty neurotic culture.  Mom showed me by her example how to recognize this in yourself and then to strive to be a “non-anxious presence”.  That doesn’t mean she was good at it.  It means she practiced.  That’s inspiring.

8) “Don’t let the sun go down on your anger.”  This one comes straight out of the Bible (Ephesians), and it was a practice that she and my father adopted religiously.  Every night, I’d hear them from behind their bedroom door, talking in low voices and then praying in unison.  Taking responsibility for your emotions and communicating them is another inspiring example.  Own your anger; it is about you.  Talk about your anger to someone else.  Then you are re-connected and at peace.  It’s not magic; it’s useful. 

9) “Underneath are the Everlasting Arms.”  This also comes straight out of the Bible (Deuteronomy), but in the very next line, those arms are thrusting out against enemies and doing violence.   The everlasting arms that my mother referred to were supportive.  They were secure and safe.  If I am to grow out of my neuroses at all, I think I need to begin to trust that the World is a good place.  I belong here.  Even though I myself and everyone I know will die, we end up right here.  That’s the way it is, and there’s nothing wrong. 

10) “Let nothing disturb thee, nothing affright thee.  All things are passing; God never changeth.  Patient endurance attaineth to all things.  Who God possesseth in nothing is wanting.  Alone God sufficeth. ”  Teresa of Avila, translated by Longfellow.  Mom had these words written up in her small hand and pasted on the inside of her desk cubbyhole door.  It was like a secret she showed me when we were worried about something.  All things are passing.  This fear, this problem, this moment.  Patience.  Change and movement is how Life is, and it is well.  I really believe that and strive to remember it.  I think that all of Life is embraced in that dynamic, including God.

All things are passing, year into year, life into life, microscopically and macroscopically.  We are so fortunate to be aware of our experience of it!  I am ever grateful to my mother for sharing her life and her awareness and so many of her experiences with me.  I look forward to more! 

mom laughing

photo by Josh

 

May each of you be happy and at peace in this year’s ending and in the continuation of Life in the New Year!

80 Years in Eight Days — Day Number Five: 10 Silly Sayings

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The birthday project continues.  Yesterday’s was a rather heavy topic.  I had to take a nap after writing it!  So today, I’m offering Silly Sayings to lighten things up a bit.  My mom was an English major in college and has always exhibited a droll, rather British wit.  She loves word play and puns and arcane literary allusions.  So here’s a list of some of her rather unique utterances.  We’ll start with terminology and end up with occasional quips.

1) Zans.  This is a kitchen gadget commonly known as a bottle opener, but thanks to Dr. Seuss, my mother refers to it as a Zans.  “Have you a Zans for cans?  You should!” (from One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, of course)zans-for-cans

2) Doo-hickey.  This is a twist-tie for closing a plastic bag.  She saves them in a little dish on top of the oven to re-use. 

3) Cupeliar.  It’s like peculiar, only more so. 

4) Slip-go-down.  This is any food that you can eat without making an effort to swallow it.  It’s served when you are sick with a very sore throat.  An alternative for brand-name gelatin, if you will. 

5) Posbiculate.  Otherwise known as brain-storming, logistic cogitating, or ‘work-shopping’, if you speak Biznish (that one’s mine;  I came up with it when my IT husband would start using computer terms at home).  How it’s used: my brother is now engaged, but there is no wedding date set yet.  We’re still posbiculating. 

From this sampling of terms, we now move into occasions.

6) The one great hour of swearing.  This is when my mother feels an urgency to clean house.  She swoops down on us in a flurry of instructions, frustrations, and activity making everyone uncomfortable…but only for a short time, because it’s all accomplished quickly and efficiently.  Then she can say…

7) “It’s all a merciful blur.”  I get this response a lot when I ask her to recall the details of how she managed something painfully emotional and/or difficult.  She prefers to remain positive. 

8) “I haven’t had this much fun since we nailed the baby to the floor!”  Now, calm down.  Mom’s not got a sadistic bone in her body.  Picture this instead: a baby dressed like Swee’ Pea in a Popeye cartoon with a trailing nightie.  Nail the nightie to the floor, and the baby will crawl forever and not get into any mischief.  So, now you can!

9) “Enuff zis luff-makink.  Let’s eat!”  This is how Mom moves a gathering of chit-chatting guests into the dining room to actually sit down and begin the meal before it gets cold.  I kid you not, she said this as we were standing around in the courtyard of the columbarium at my father’s memorial service, too.  Dutifully, we all burst out laughing and headed in to the Parish Hall to start the reception.

Resting place

10) “Here’s champagne for our real friends, and real pain for our sham friends!”  This toast comes out periodically.  She said it over the phone to me on Christmas just a few days ago.  Now you’ve heard it just in time for New Year’s Eve, her birthday.  I leave it up to you to quote…or not. 

New Year's 2013

© 2014, essay and photographs, Priscilla Galasso, All rights reserved

80 Years in 8 Days – A Birthday Project for My Mother

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“My sainted mother” (as Gene Kelly used to say of his) is turning 80 on New Year’s Eve.  She is a couple of thousand miles away in California; I am living in Milwaukee missing the sunshine of her warm personality.  How shall I celebrate her life from this distance?  I came upon an idea: post a blog entry every day from Christmas Eve through New Year’s Eve containing 10 things I appreciate about her.  By her birthday, she will have read 80 reasons that I am so grateful for her long life. 

I have decided to start out with “10 Background Bits”, pieces of factual information to set the stage for her “close up”.  First, there is a family history for this kind of project.  When my father turned 60, I presented him with a little typed booklet entitled “60 Memories of My Father”.  The cover was made out of construction paper.  It looked a bit like a school assignment for a 3rd grader, I admit.  But it was made with love.  My father ended up writing his own memoirs 8 years later in response to interview questions I sent him.  2 years after that, he began his mysterious journey into dementia and Alzheimer’s.  For my mother’s 70th birthday, I wrote “!70 Foods 70!”, an anthology of food memories with pictures.  (She is a fabulous gourmet cook.) My mother keeps that in a binder, each page engulfed in a separate plastic sheath.  It looks a lot more professional than my first attempt. (She is also a museum archivist.)  So this birthday project is one of a much-beloved series that has enriched me in the recollection and writing of it and, hopefully, enriched my parents in the receiving.

2) Time: Anne Louise was born December 31, 1934 – a blessed little tax deduction for her folks that year and their first child.  My kids now know her as “Granne Louise”.

3) Place: Fair Lawn, New Jersey. 

4) Mother: Marion Keeffe McFarland.  A tiny spitfire of a personality, ambitious and shrewd, a capable survivor with a twinkle in her step.  My mother and I both wore her long bridal veil when we were married.  The secret she carried to her grave: she never got beyond the 8th grade in school.

grandma Marion5) Father: David Elmer McFarland, Jr.  He was an electrical engineer with Public Service of New Jersey.  His stateside responsibilities kept him home during WWII, keeping the power running, managing 5 Victory Gardens, and being husband and father.  My mother adored her father: he was the calming antidote to her mother’s small furies and mini dramas, a grounding presence with a refreshing sense of humor.  I think I heard once that he played the piano at a nickelodeon… I believe it, anyway.

grandpa David6) Her younger sister, Sandy.  Actually, her name is Marion like her mother, but her nickname distinguishes her.  Her blonde hair, petite frame and bubbly personality came back to my mother’s mind often when I was in her view, since I was the only blonde and the youngest of her 4 daughters.  Sandy was much like her mother: tiny and very social.  My mother was more like her father: lanky and cerebral. 

7) My mother’s natural strengths: precocious and enduring intelligence, musical talent, organization. 

8) Her natural weakness: her eyes.  She was finally diagnosed with myopia and ambliopia at age 5, and wore an eye patch and glasses.  Her walleye makes for poor depth perception, but it gives her the peripheral vision that kept me from sneaking anything past her…ever. 

star9) Growing up: my mother’s stories of growing up sound to me like echoes from an early TV sitcom — pin-setting at the bowling alley for a penny a pin to earn spending money, which was then spent at the movies, often for a double feature; learning to drive on a dirt road around the town’s water tower with her boyfriend, Duff; keeping statistics for the school baseball team and flirting with the players; trips to New York City every year, where her Aunt would buy her a new coat.  Happy days, it would seem. 

10) Becoming an adult: because she skipped a year of school and her birthday’s so late in the year, my mother headed off to college at the tender age of 16.  And not just any college — Radcliffe College.  Her mother had two goals for her: either meet a rich man and marry, or get a first rate education so that you can support yourself.  My mother got both the man and the education.  She graduated in May of 1955, earning a B. A. in English with her thesis on Jane Austen.  She married George William Heigho (Harvard ’55) in September that same year. 

1955bFor a writing class 3 years ago, I was prompted to write my parents’ wedding announcement.  Mom, always a sharp editor, made sure I got it right:

Anne Louise McFarland and George William Heigho II were married September 3, 1955 at All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Glen Rock, New Jersey.  The bride is a graduate of Radcliffe College, and the groom is a Harvard graduate.  The couple met at the Canterbury Club on campus during their sophomore year.  Mrs. Heigho is the daughter of Marion Keeffe and David Elmer McFarland, Jr. of Fair Lawn, New Jersey.  Her father is an electrical engineer with Public Service of New Jersey.  The groom is the son of Dorothy Lauver and William Stephens Heigho of Detroit, Michigan.  His grandfather, George William Heigho I, was the president and CEO of Calvert Lithographing company.  The couple will be sailing to England on the Nieuw Amsterdam for their honeymoon, returning in a month to their new home in Boston.  Mr. Heigho will then begin work with IBM.”

This portion of the birthday project also serves as a traditional Christmas Eve ghost story.  The spirits of my Grandpa, Grandma, and father are affectionately internalized in my mother now.  I’m sure she holds many more as well – notably (to me) my sister and my husband.  The lives of friends, family, entertainers, neighbors, writers, thinkers and even fictional characters seem to animate her with exuberant ideas of connection.  Conversation with her is peppered with the anecdotes of a host of souls.  

Tomorrow is Christmas Day, and that chapter of 80 Years in 8 Days is dedicated to “10 Family Foods”.  My mother’s table is the holiday feast I dream of every year.  While visions of it dance in my head, I wish you, Mom, and dear readers, a Good Night.    

I Haven’t Forgotten This Day

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I haven’t forgotten what we shared and how much it meant: how meeting you for the first time made me feel…

I haven’t forgotten the gift of holding you in my arms…

…or the joy of our shared laughter…

…or the sweet music we made together.

photographer unknown

I haven’t forgotten the caring; deep, yearning, hoping for all good things for you.

photo credit: Susan
Not a costume nor an actual pirate. Diabetic retinopathy for reals. Still, we tried to have fun with it.

He whispered these things to my heart, and I responded, “Neither have we, my darling.”

To us: many happy returns of the day. 

This Is Your Party, Mom!

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My grandfather’s little tax deduction for the year 1934 arrived on New Year’s Eve.  Anne Louise McFarland, my mother, grew up believing that all the fireworks and shouting every year on this day was in honor of her birthday.  I grew up believing something very similar.  My parents didn’t dress up and go out on New Year’s Eve…they dined at home on champagne and escargot and caviar and other delectable treats while listening to “The Midnight Special” on WFMT or to “Die Fledermaus” on TV or video.  When I was old enough to stay up with them, we would sometimes catch the Times Square celebration and then declare East Coast midnight and go to bed an hour early.  But the reason for the season was my mother, not the march of time.  In my late teens, I didn’t go to other people’s parties, I still stayed home…and my boyfriend (soon to be husband) joined us.  We enjoyed the best food and champagne and music and silliness and company without ever having to contend with drunk drivers on the roads.  My mom lives 2,205 miles away from me now, but I am still planning to stay home and drink champagne and eat salmon and listen to wonderful music and think of her.  She is still reason enough for all the joy and love and delight you might see tonight.  I’ll show you why:

Graduation, Radcliffe Class of 1955

Graduation, Radcliffe Class of 1955

This is my mom and dad at her college graduation.  That’s right, she graduated from Radcliffe, the female component to Harvard, at the age of 20.  The woman has brains.  With her late birthday and having skipped a year in elementary school, that means she went to college at age 16, all naive and nerdy with bad teeth and a lazy eye and glasses, but with a curiosity and charm that matured and eventually proved irresistible to my father, who, with money and pedigree and a Harvard degree, was “quite a catch”.  

Ten years later, the family

Ten years later, the family

So, by 1965, she’s a mother of 4 little girls (that’s me, the baby, blonde, aged 3), running a household, volunteering with Eastern Star and the church and a host of other things.  So stylish, so Jackie!  This was Massachusetts, you know. 

Acadia National Park, I think

Acadia National Park, I think

And she’s not afraid to go camping, either.  This was a picnic picture taken by her mother-in-law.  That would explain the handbags and the dress.  My grandmother was never seen anywhere without a handbag and make-up.  My mother was…often!

1978 in California

1978 in California

Fast forward 13 years.  My mother gave birth to a boy when she was 38.  She had 4 willing babysitters surrounding her and a handsome husband now sporting a beard.  She’d also picked up a Masters degree in Church Music.  We moved from Chicago to California where she became more adventurous in cuisine and hiking and music and new volunteer opportunities.  This photo was taken the last Christmas that all her children were alive.  My sister Alice (far left) died the next August.

1985 - Proud grandparents

1985 – Proud grandparents

A month after she’d turned 50, my mother became a grandmother for the first time.  She’d also survived breast cancer by electing to have major surgery, something her own mother had done 10 years earlier.  She was housing and caring for her barely mobile mother and raising a pre-teen son at this time as well.  Do you see a grey hair?  No?  Neither do I.  My mother is amazing.

1989b

Christmas and New Year's 1989

Christmas and New Year’s 1989

Mom turns 55.   She has 4 grandchildren, a 16-yr old son, and her mother has just died.  She’s volunteering as a docent at the San Jose Historical Museum, a position she will hold for more than 20 years, specializing in their music department. 

Summer 1994 - babysitting the grandkids

Summer 1994 – babysitting the grandkids

Here, she’s 60.  My husband and I are traveling in Europe for our 10th anniversary, and she and Dad take our kids to the beach cottage for a few weeks.  My husband survived double bypass surgery on his heart two years earlier.  Yeah, Mom came out then, too, to take care of the kids…and me.  Who has the energy to be with 4 kids (aged 3, 5, 7, & 9) at the beach for two weeks at the age of 30, let alone twice that?  My mother.  Although she did let me know (graciously) that it wasn’t easy. 

13 years later, back at the beach

13 years later, back at the beach

In 2007, Mom came out with my sister and brother to see my daughter graduate from college.  We all went to the cottage together again.  This was my husband’s last trip: he died the following February.  My father is not with us on this vacation.  He is in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s disease, a condition he had for 7 years before his death.  My mother visited him several times a week while he needed skilled care and played the piano for all the residents, jogging memories with old popular tunes and supporting the hymns during chapel services.

March 2010 - photo credit DKK

March 2010 – photo credit DKK

My father died in March of 2010.  I had been widowed for 2 years.  My kids and I flew back to California for his memorial service, and Dad’s ashes were buried next to my sister’s and my husband’s.  My mother invited the family back to her house and we gathered around the piano again.  She played and sang and laughed and cried, and I did, too, right by her side.  My mother and I are alike in many ways, and I am so glad, proud and grateful to be a woman like her.  I see her smile, I hear her voice, I taste her cooking and her tears, and feel her spirit flowing around and through me all the time.  We’re going to party tonight, Mom.  Miles be damned!  Happy Birthday!  I love you!

 

 

Happy Birthday, Dad!

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My father was born on July 10, 1933.  He died in 2010.  He had a group of work colleagues who were also born in July, and they used to call themselves the SRA Cancer Society.  My father did have prostate cancer at one time, but surgery eliminated it completely.  He died of Alzheimer’s.  He was never one to celebrate his birthday in any obvious way, but he did enjoy fine dining.  Fortunately for him, he had the wherewithal to enjoy the very finest.  I benefited from the “trickle down effect” of that boon, meaning that I have dined well on his generosity myself.  On the occasion of his 70th birthday, we stayed at The Benbow Inn near Garberville, CA.  Located on a river in the redwoods, this beautiful resort was established in 1926.  My father counted it as one of his favorite places.  The first time I went there was on the way north to Oregon for my sister’s wedding.  My 9-month old daughter Susan was with me.  Ordinarily, children are not allowed in the dining room after 8pm, but the management made an exception for my father, who promised that the baby would be beautifully behaved…and she was.  Later that evening, I realized she had a bit of a fever and digestive distress, but that only mellowed her out.  The next time I visited the Inn was my father’s 70th birthday.  I had begun to notice signs of memory loss and confusion during that trip, but he was completely in his comfort zone at the restaurant. My mother and brother look a bit skeptical in this photo:

I remember the delight he showed in settling in at the bar and sampling from their extensive selection of Scotch before dinner.  I compare it to my absolute thrill at finding a decanter of sherry in my room.  So nice of them!  The next day, we had them pack us a picnic to eat while out hiking.  It was elegant and tasty, but a far cry from the granola bars and such that my father usually took on his woodland walks.  

I think I set the camera on a tree stump and used the self-timer on this one…

My father would be participating in the heavenly banquet of eternity right now, and I can imagine him enjoying himself immensely in that setting.  I’m off to get myself a little supper, probably just some hummus and a glass of Shiraz, but I eat and drink to his honor in gratitude this evening.  I love you, Dad.  To Life!!

Celebrate Good Times, Come On!

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Today is my darling baby’s 21st birthday, which in the good ole U. S. of A. means that she can legally purchase and/or be served an alcoholic drink.   Whoo-hoo!  This becomes quite the rite of passage for many people.  It used to be that different states had different legal drinking ages.  Back in the 70s, Illinois had it at 21 and Wisconsin had it at 18, so lots of kids would drive over the border to drink and then drive home drunk.  Not something a mother wants to think about for too long.  In my family of origin, though, drinking was done at home.  The first (and only!) time I got sick from sampling alcohol, I was 10 years old.  My mother made a Greek dinner and my father let me taste Ouzo, retsina, and Metaxa.  I learned how much is too much pretty early.  I also learned that I could get much better alcohol at home than I could at a party with my peers.   For me, it is all about taste.  My father once educated my children at the dinner table by explaining how alcohol is a solvent that releases fragrance and enhances the taste of food.  What is the primary liquid in fine perfumes?  Alcohol.  The pairing of food and drink is a scientific discovery of pleasure.  Coming from my dad, that seemed to be the “right” approach, and I think it has served pretty well.  My kids grew up having tastes in increased measures and never became binge drinkers.  My baby had her first taste when she was baptized at two months old.  The priest dipped his finger in the communion wine and let her suck on it.  She was a full-fledged member from that day on.  Why not?

When I turned 21, I was engaged to be married.  My fiance took me out for a champagne brunch after church.  All through my 20s, I was having babies.  I never went to bars and hardly drank at all.  I have no cultural experience of “the bar scene”, and that amuses Steve no end these days.  I also missed all of the pop music scene from the 80s on.  I am a walking anachronism, it seems.  Oh, well.  I still think I know how to have fun.  I do drink and dance and sing…mostly with family.  Tonight, my kids are going out together to do Broadway karaoke at a gay bar.  Now, I could fit right in with that!  I worked for a children’s musical theater company for 7 years, and my kids were all involved.  We rock the Broadway tunes!  Sadly, though, Mom is not invited.  Not this time, but I hope in the near future.

And now, for the photo journal portion.  My family album reveals “Celebrations, Then & Now”:

It starts with my family of origin. My mom at the piano after serving us a gourmet meal and wine. This was typical. Pictured: my sisters, brother, and a niece. (photo: DKK)

Next: Me & Jim at a church talent show. Yes, a couple of hams with a couple of drinks in them, singing and dancing.

 

So, then what happens? We raise a bunch of talented kids who like to perform and dress up and drink like pirates!

See? It's a theme.

So then my baby gets the bug really bad, and she's really good! (and I can't get this to print any bigger, sorry!)

And she's absolutely fabulous and happy onstage!

And I am incredibly proud of her!

 

And sometimes, we get to play dress up and sing and dance together!

And now, she’s all growed up! (*sniff*)  You are fabulous, Miss Em!  Go rock the scene tonight, celebrate your life, your health, your talent, your livelihood, your friends & family, and the fact that you are here and surrounded by love!!  And I know you won’t forget, that love extends beyond visible boundaries.

Your daddy adores you!

And he now celebrates the remarkable lady you've become with a bigger smile than he could muster with his physical form!