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I have a teenager. It does not seem possible.

It can’t be. After all, just yesterday I cried with your father because you came out of my belly so healthy and beautiful.

That was not 13 years ago.

Or was it.

Because suddenly you are not a little boy anymore.

You are this young man, who still loves to hug and hold hands with his mother and father and is not embarrased by it.

This young man who is so self assured.

You make good choices.

You are kind.

The other day I complained to you that you had spent your school lunch money too quickly! What were you buying? You replied that you had bought a girl lunch because she didn’t have any money and was hungry. I asked what her name was, and you replied “I don’t know. She just needed help”.

You humble me.

I watch you with your little sister and it brings me to tears to see how tender you are with her. Most of the time she pushes you away because she is 3 and trying to be independant. It breaks my heart to see how sad that makes you. But the other day when we came to your school to watch a presentation, she saw you and went to you. She crawled in your lap and you wrapped your arms around her. The joy on your face made my chest hurt. It was so priceless.

You are your fathers son.

I see him in you more and more each day.

How lucky you are to have inherited your fathers kind spirit, his quiet and gentle ways.

Yesterday while watching you play football, I marveled to your father about how still you stood on the sidelines when you were not playing. You were watching the game with such intensitiy….studying everthing.

You have always been like that. Since you were a baby, you would study something forever before trying it yourself. Your father said you didn’t want to try anything until you were sure you could do it. You master things in your mind first. It is this cautiousness that makes me know you will continue to make good choices. You inherited this from your father as well.

What did you inherit from me? What imprint have I left on your life?

We look nothing alike. Like I said, you are your fathers son.

The way I see myself in you happens in an instant and then it is gone. It is mysterious and ghostly and I have to wonder if it is really there at all. The flash of your eye. The way you brush the hair out of your sisters face. It is in your expressions and your mannerisms.

If I were to die, would your father look at you and see me in the furrow of your brow?

Or would he see me in the way you love animals.

The thing is, you don’t have to have my eyes, or my mouth, or my hands for me to know you are my son. You have my heart, child. I gave it to you on the day you were born.

I love you with all of my heart and soul.

Happy Birthday my first born.