Dad, here’s a birthday surprise: You are the gift.

Dear Dad,
Happy 70th birthday! Wow, 70. SEVENTY. Sorry, it’s just … I’ve got to be honest, Dad, that number feels weighty for some reason. Don’t get me wrong, I know you’re active and healthy; your sense of humor’s still corny and your sense of adventure’s still keen. For goodness’ sake, just yesterday you went from a cruise ship to a tour bus to a Super Bowl party in a matter of hours. Still, 70 feels different to me, a little sobering if you don’t mind me saying. It makes me feel older; in fact I’m definitely dwelling on my age more today than I will next week when I turn shhhhh.

For the past couple weeks I’ve been trying to write a blog post about you. I wanted it to be about you, not me, but every time I considered an anecdote about your life or a peek into your personality it somehow came back around to me. At first this was making me feel mighty narcissistic, until I realized it’s just because you are so much of who I am that I now don’t just see you in me (and in my kids) — I also see me in you. I know it sounds strange, but let me explain.

We are who we are in relation to other people, and I believe that doesn’t just go from father to daughter, from grandmother to son to grandson. Genes are passed down but memories, dreams, the wholeness of a family’s love, that seeps up the family bloodline as much as it travels down through the youngest generation.

In a sense, I see your past not just as your past,

but also as my prologue.

I am who I am in large part because you are my father. Because you married my mother. Because together you decided to raise your children so differently than your own parents raised you.

So sorry, Dad, but I cannot celebrate you without also celebrating me, simply because there is so much of you inside me to celebrate. (Feel free to send presents. I’d love an iPhone.)

I am who I am because you gave me the confidence that comes from knowing I wasn’t an obligation or a burden, I was a gift.

I am who I am because you gave me the safety of a father’s arms in which to grow up.

I am who I am because you gave me sisters to learn from and share with and love, and you loved us all equally* but differently.

I am who I am because you gave me a role model, someone who put himself through college, fought for our country, carved a new path for his family, and never let a dead end define him.

I am who I am because you showed me the world outside my own backyard, because you bought a big old Chevy van and an even bigger two-room tent and carted our family across the country so we could see who we are relative to where we are and what’s around us.