Happy Birthday, Daughter

In the moment before my daughter's full birth, after her head was delivered, and just before the next contraction to push out the rest of her, my doctor played a mean trick on me and said: "In your heart of hearts, do you want a boy or a girl?" "A girl" was my immediate response. And then she was born and my deepest dream, that I didn't know I had until that moment, came true. I'm sure I would have fallen equally in love with a boy should he have been born but it was Kelly that gifted my life. I have loved being her mother, not just the mother of a daughter although that zings through my body in its importance, but this daughter. Kelly Marie.

Her birthday is tomorrow and I've been in this funky kind of mood- being alone, missing John, longing for family together time and realizing the year is ending and it's time to take stock of my life. So I've been doing some of that. And Kelly was talking to me about her struggles over what the next step should be in her life. She's a good communicator that way, and lives so on purpose. I love that about her. And it seemed familiar. It made me realize that we cover some of the same ground again and again as we age, not in circles but more like a spiral ascending.

We follow our dreams, our spirits urging. We live our lives fully and with gratitude and then we stop every once in a while and take our inventory. How am I doing? Have I slipped into unhealthy ways of being? Am I doing what I need to do to grow? Have I grown bigger than my environment can hold and I need to find another? Or do I need to expand to fill the bigger environment that I've built? Am I being of service, giving of myself in ways that excite me as well as help others? What's the next way to do that?

Questions of a 34 year old daughter, a 64 year old me and, in our family, a 94 year old father. Questions that honor our responsibility to be true to ourselves and to love one another. I'm glad to be sharing this search with Kelly. She makes my heart happy. I hope for her a happy heart, too.