Yesterday was my adult daughter's birthday, the daughter I raised as a single parent, just the two of us from the time she was 4 until she left for college at 18.
My only child. The one I waited to have until I was in my mid-thirties, knowing it was finally time. She is now that same age. What am I to do with that?
Last year, she and her spouse decided that the high-stress life evident just about everywhere in our society today was not for them. They sold or gave away everything except their necessary clothes and their three dogs and flew off to Costa Rica......for good.
Or at least "good" enough that I'm thinking that they will be there to miss events like, well, birthdays.
A number of years ago I wrote a letter to her for her birthday, the letter that has since become a staple each year on that day. Much has changed in her life since I wrote it, but the frame through which I view her hasn't. And even though the well-worn adage that having a child is allowing your heart to walk in the world separately from you is true, it is also true that the bond between parent and child can stretch, wear, and even fray a bit. But that tie is permanent. Unbreakable.
Especially on the anniversary that it was brought into being.
