Carrie Link

HAPPY 15th BIRTHDAY, WOOHOO!

Dear Woohoo,

This week you turn 15, which somehow sounds so much older than 14. You ARE much older than you were a year ago, too. Much.

A year ago you were in eighth grade, middle school, at the end of a long stretch at the same school. You walked in a young five-year-old kindergartner, and walked out a ready-for-high-schooler.

But now you're rounding out your freshman year and are thinking of things like driver's permits, dates to dances, and the shifting sands of friendship.

You're able now to discern the wheat from the chaff, the true friends from the false ones, the ones that have your back and the ones that don't.

Fourteen years ago I took this picture of you with your favorite friend, Bear. He was bright and pink and well-stuffed. Today he is not so much your friend as your pillow. He is still pink if you catch him in the right light, he's shrunk, grainier, his plush has mostly rubbed off. You've made him Real. I swear I look into his scratched up black eyes and a soul looks back at me. Your love did that.

Fortunately, I think you were too young to remember when Rojo insisted on taking Bear to the grocery store one day when you were at preschool. He dropped him and it wasn't until we got home that we realized we'd left Bear. We called the store, we got Daddy, and every manager and all four of us searched every inch of that store until we found him. I never let Rojo touch him again. He takes a lot, but he can't have everything.

I know it's hard being Rojo's sister. The minute he was born the pie got cut disproportionately. You may not get 1/2 of our attention and energy, but I guarantee you get all the love in our hearts.

We couldn't be more proud of you, you are wise and kind, funny and generous. You are honest and sweet, hard working and responsible. And while we may be winding down the number of years you will live in our home, you will always live right in the middle of our hearts.

Happy birthday, Woohoo.