A Love Letter to My Son on His Birthday

16 years ago today, at 4:52 am, nine pounds, four ounces of your precious self were placed in my 21-year-old arms. At 23 inches long, you didn't even fit into the Christmas stocking sleeping bags the in which the birthing center was putting all the new arrivals. So, problem solvers, they just draped the stocking across you, like a throw.

You made the other babies look like little toys, you were so long and rangy.

Your hair was jet black and plentiful, and within hours had adopted the Conan O'Brien gravity-defying style you still wrestle with today. Your nose was so angular and pronounced that you most resembled a tiny little man, not a newborn baby. A top hat would have made more sense on you than the little stocking cap we had.

You were as you were in my womb- gentle and slow, sweet and ruminative. You spent hours staring at unadorned white walls, watching intently as the light changed in our little bedroom. I wondered what you knew, what thoughts you carried with you from there to here, and how you were reconciling one reality with this new one. You were happy, serious, and so lovely. I can't describe the smell of your little head, but I hated washing your hair. (I feel better about it now.) I would bury my nose in your hair and, much to your chagrine, your cheeks.

As you have grown, I have tried to balance my desire to raise you with my desire to know you well. You are hard to know - slow to share your feelings and most intimate thoughts. You prefer to think than to speak, and when you do speak you'd rather crack a sardonic quip than share your insights. In desperate times, you are ten thousand years old. You seem to understand the rules of the universe on a fundamental level- like you are connected so closely to the veil between energy and entropy that you are the oldest and youngest person I have ever met, simultaneously. I have never met a gentler, kinder person than you. There is a light, a deep and powerful force that hums away inside of you, and is apparent to everyone close to you. Nothing I ever did in my life was good enough to deserve you, and I will never live long enough to love you as much as I'd like to, or you'd deserve.

I can't believe how much fun it's been so far. I can't wait to see what the next year, the next 16 will be like. Will you still love the same foods? Will I still be able to crack you up? Will you still be as generous with your secret self, sharing your tender thoughts as you fiddle with whatever's handy with your long, reticulated daddy hands?

I want to say this as clearly as I can: that moment, the moment of your birth - it was the first best moment of my life. Now, 16 years later, with the birth of your little sister, and the addition of your step mom and step dad...we have had so many beautiful moments in our shared life together that we'd never get done if we made a list. But I know where we'd start - sixteen years ago today, when you came through the universe to my waiting arms, to change every single thing. I love you, my baby boy.