Unadulterated Love

You have no idea how much you have meant to me over the last 21 years. Every day (and especially today), you are in my thoughts as I sit each morning hoping only the best for you, your brother, and your sisters. 

You were my firstborn, and when you were born, I had no idea of love. Those who do not have children probably think about love the way I did before you were born. "Being in love is an affectionate, reciprocated feeling, thought, and action between two people." Pretty simple stuff! Right? Well, that's what I thought, anyway. But when you were born, there was an undeniable new feeling of love that I had no idea existed. A true, unconditional love that had no other attachment to anything else I had ever known. No history or tarnished words. Just unadulterated love. I was in awe over this feeling, and it (and you) captivated me.

What a gift to know this feeling! It can't be known until it is given, and in my opinion, there is no other feeling like it in the world. Watching you come into this world and find your way into young adulthood has been such a blessing, but nothing can compare to the feeling of watching you take your first breath, cry, kick, and screams you made as the nurses cleaned you up in the hospital room. 

I never knew love until the day you were born, and I will always look at you with the same amazement and adoring gaze of that first day I discovered what it meant to love someone truly. I hope that today and every day that passes, you come closer to knowing what it means to love someone, truly, too. 

Happy birthday!

So much love.

Daddy!