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to my son on his 10th birthday
Gatsby, GB, Geebs, #60: you are ten years old today. I’m currently writing this on the 12-hour plane ride to Hawaii. We’re taking a family trip to Oahu to celebrate Duke and you and Flippy’s birthdays… so I’d say you’re already off to a pretty great 10th year. From repeatedly hitting me in the head…
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to my kid on their 11th birthday
Holdy, Holden (“are you mad at me?”), H Dawg, Turd: Happy Birthday and welcome to your 11th year on this planet. Your tenth year was quite a doozy. You went to your first “real” concert when we saw Jimmy Buffett last summer and fell in love with “Rocky Horror Picture Show last fall. This year,…
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to my son on his 9th birthday
Gatsby/Geebs/Crapsby/Gibs/Mr. Spills — Happy Birthday! You’re 9 today, Kid. Another year has passed of you being an absolute weirdo. We’re over Michael Jackson now and we’re firmly into basketball. You are a whiz at knowing players’ names and stats and histories, and even personal lives. You always ask us who’s the GOAT: Jordan, Lebron or…
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to my kid on their tenth birthday
Holden, Holdy, Turd, Troll, Today is your 10th birthday: the “double digits,” as you’ve been saying. You just finished fourth grade at York Academy and were sad to finish the year because you’ll miss your friends. Of course, you’ll still talk to them all day long on Snapchat, Roblox and FaceTime anyway… You love Hello…
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to my son on his eighth birthday
Geebarino, We’re spending this birthday on a plane to Walt Disney World, where we’ll meet Nanny, Brenda, Uncle Max, Brandy and Harrison and we’ll celebrate, not only your eighth birthday, but also Dukie’s life. This past year, we spent quite a bit of time coming to terms with grief. We lost Duke just before your…
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Death and Disney
Early Friday morning, my dad died. Twelve hours later, I was on a plane to Disney World.
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to my daughter on her ninth birthday
Holdy, H, H-bomb, Dirt, Bridge Troll, We’ve had… a lot… going on lately, so I’m writing this to you from my phone at our campsite waiting for you to wake up this morning. You, my child, are not a morning person (neither am I, so no judgment.) This past year has required a lot of…
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to my son on his seventh birthday
Gatsby, GB, Geebs, Gilbert, Geebo: You started your 6th year in quarantine and you’re starting your 7th in a new world. We know your beloved Dukie is celebrating you along with us today. This past year we spent *a lot* of time together as we struggled through—then accepted—then despised—then mastered remote learning. Somehow, despite having…
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Where I’m From
George Ella Lyon wrote her poem “Where I’m From” in 1993 in response to the fear and hate alive in our country and created the I Am From Project. I was introduced to the poem by Dr. Monea Abdul-Majeed, who often opens her anti-racism workshops with a similar exercise, and was inspired to write my…