Happy Birthday Sweet 16

My little girl, Erin, turned 16 today.

Someone needs to explain to me why this birthday is so special for girls. In my culture, the big birthday is 15 (la Quinceañera). You guys can answer that question in comments. I know it's a big one.



Neil's right. She's not a baby anymore. She is quite the young woman with hopes and dreams and pie-in-the-sky ideas that just may come true. I hope she realizes all of them. When she was just learning how to speak, I taught her a little mantra that seems to have stuck. I would ask her to repeat after me.

"I'm smart. I'm intelligent. I can be whatever I want."

Every now and then, she also reminds me of the song we wrote together called "Glue and Tape." It's about literally using glue and tape to fix anything from a broken lamp to broken limbs. She's the lyricist on this one...Go ahead and try it...

If you have a broken (insert object)
Whaddaya do?
Ya get some tape
And ya get some glue
Ya get yer (insert mom or dad)
To help you out
And that's what it's all about

These days, we don't get to hang together much. She's a full-fledged, all-about-me teenager. I could not be happier. She is a member of the National Tri-M (Music) Honor Society. She's made the academic honor roll at her high school this year. She's already getting letters from college because she kicked ass on her PSATs. And soon she'll be taking the written exam to get her learner's driving permit. I'm so proud of her.

But I would be remiss if I did not switch gears and mention her uncle George in this post. Today is also George's birthday. He would have been 52. He is no longer with us, having passed away in 1997 after losing his battle with AIDS. But he lives on in Erin. I swear it.

You see it was George who gave us the idea for Erin's name, forever linking uncle and niece together. As I recall, E. and I were at my brother Ralph's wedding in August 1991, when we told George she was pregnant. No one was more excited than George; so excited, in fact, that he told us flat out, "It's going to be a girl." Then he told us what we should name her.

E: Well, we like the name Emily as a first name and Margaret as the second.

George: Oh that's pretty. But it's not Irish enough. E. you're Irish. Don't you want her to have an Irish first name? How about Erin?

The name stuck.

In fact, it's uncanny how Erin and George are so much alike. She is a gregarious and kind-hearted soul who can be a bit flighty at times. She loves to play with kids and has an impeccable sense of style. I'll bet she'd like The Stylistics, too if I played them for her. She also thinks she's a princess.

I really don't like to dredge up old posts, but here's a poem I put out here a while back for George. I'd thought I'd resurrect it today to honor his memory.

Fairy Princess

I’m flying back to when
We cowered ‘neath our blankets
In advent of your morning arrival;
To our housing-green room,
When your linen bedsheet gown
And knee-high tubes socks announced,
“I’m the Fairy Princess. LA!!!!”

How naive we were to think
That our concealments
Would not reveal our secret location.
But you, dear fairy princess
Knew too well the happy sounds
Of muffled shrieks and giggles
And raised your wood-spoon wand anyway!

“LA!!! You are a mangy cat!
And, LA!, you are an ugly toad!
And if you tell mom or pop
I’ll turn you both to unmovable stones,
When you least expect it”,
You deliver in a sinister shrill
As only our Fairy Princess can.

But your threats were idle
And all your magic useless
To the power of Margie’s mind.
“A toad?” we say,
“We’ll give you warts!”
“A mangy cat, huh?”
Xing! Xing! “Fear my claws!”

Sadly, the day came when
The spoon lost its magic;
When the childhood disease of
Compounding days and years
Dragged us to another realm
Away from your magnificent spells,
Into a cubicle of boring responsibility.

In that grown-up confinement
Of living, dying, and taxes
There is nary a shock nor temblor
Nor the sparkle of pixied illusion
To provide us with happy diversions
From all that is
In our mundane, work-a-day world.

Will you join me stranger?
Come and see my housing-green hideaway,
Where my dear Fairy Princess
Still waves his wood spoon
In flowing linen robes
And knee-high tube socks.
You just may become something else.


Happy birthday Erin and George. I love you both so much!