Happy birthday

This week is my daughter's birthday. Once again, she is too far away for me to share a birthday lunch or dinner with her, or for me to bake her an angel food cake and buy her favorite ice cream and watch her face as she blows out candles and laughs with her friends and family. I am too far away to make this day as special for her as she made it for me and her dad 34 years ago. She is a grown woman with a daughter of her own--and this, in some ways, makes me think that she will understand how I feel on her birthday: as if I can't give her a present big enough or important enough to match what she has given me and her dad through the 34 years of her life.

What does a child give a parent? It's easy to enumerate the bad things: sleepless nights, the worry, the frustrations, the money drain, the uncertainties, the late nights, that first day at school when she boards the bus alone, and--it seems like the next day-- the anxiety over handing the car keys to that inexperienced driver, the late night phone calls, the missed curfews, the cuts and bruises and trips to the ER... But beyond helping me find my inner nag (and my frightening connections to my own parents) our daughters have brought us so much more.

They gave us responsibility. What mother does not remember a moment when she looked at that tiny bundle of sweetly sleeping baby and thought--or said--that nothing was ever going to harm that child as long as she was around? Who hasn't flung an arm across a car seat to protect a child in a sudden stop? Or turned themselves into a "no-no" machine when their toddler started exploring things like stairs and stoves and bathroom cupboards? We were responsible for their lives and safety. And they trusted us with the trust that only a child can have--and only a mother or dad could accept.

They gave us pride. Pride in things over which they had no control ("Oh, isn't she CUTE??") and things that we taught them and things they came up with, all on their own. Pride in the young women they turned out to be--intelligent, beautiful, talented, and--above all, kind and thoughtful and considerate and funny women who we're proud to call friends as well as daughters.

They gave us purpose. Not that we didn't have things to do and places to go and mountains of our own to climb..but they gave it all more meaning. We had to be someone they could look up to, for whatever reason. We had to be worthy of them. We wanted them to be proud of us, as we were proud of them.

Graduations, jobs, independence...all of these were gifts, too: affirmations that we didn't screw up too badly as parents. One of the greatest gifts we have received is our daughters' willingness to introduce us to their friends, and their acceptance of us as more than just parents. We've often said that our goal in raising our children was to raise adults whom we would like to hang out with, not because we HAD to, but because they were good to be around. We have succeeded in that.

So, Kay--and Sarah!--thank you. Thank you for the laughter and the learning, the adventures and the discoveries. Thank you for stories and the memories and the big moments and the small ones. Thank you for the drawings on the refrigerator and the cards and the phone calls, for the celebrations and the sad times, because all of them combine to make you what you are and always have been: the light of our lives and the best gifts any parents could have. Happy birthday to you--and for us.