YEAR AFTER YEAR

Dear Spike:

Your mother’s birthday is tomorrow.

She’s already gotten her “big gift” — a green and white mountain bike she’s named “Dragon” — and you and I went to pick her up a few other tokens of our collective affection last week. Tonight I’ll sneak out of the house to go pick up some cake mix and frosting (“white cake with confetti frosting,” she has reminded me at least twice a day for the past two weeks.)

I’ve never been a big fan of my own birthday, but I love the way your mother gets excited about hers — as though she is perpetually turning seven years old, year after year after year.

I hope you take after her. And not just on one day of the year.

Life sometimes has a way of sucking the joy out of joyful things, but there is nothing wrong with feeling joy.

There’s nothing wrong with expressing excitement about things that make you happy.

And there’s nothing wrong with turning seven, year after year after year.

Love,
dad