Happy Birthday Chai

[Boo Mayhew]

Happy Birthday Chai.

I know today will be especially hard for you and send you lots of love and cyberhugs.

I find myself wondering if you are on a hike ... and hope that you are.

You may not feel like celebrating your birthday today, but I want to because you are a special wonderful kind person, with wisdom beyond your years. Your Dad taught you well my friend.

With love

Boo

xx

[Kavish]

Happy Birthday. Keep on growing and going. You are a wonderful person.

Kavish

[kath]

Chai,

Wishing you a birthday full of joyful memories and hopes for a brighter year.

Kath

[MartyT]

Chai, dear, this is a milestone birthday for you, and we're all sending you our very best wishes. Happy 21st Birthday to You

[nikol87]

Happy birthday Chai!! Take care!!

[emptyinside]

Happy birthday!

[cubby]

Happy belated Birthday Chai. I haven't been online in a while. I hope you had a peaceful birthday.

Cubby

[Rachael_NI]

Wishing you a happy 21st birthday Chai!!

This is a big birthday indeed, I hope you did something nice with your day and felt the love of your father with you - as it always will be - inside your heart.

Best Wishes and Birthday Blessings

Rachael

[Chai]

Dear friends,

Thank you so much for your wonderful, heartfelt, heart-warming messages wishing me a happy birthday.

The day itself, actually, was quite good. I had a couple old friends bring me out-to-town. We went to go see the new Harry Potter movie, which was both good and bad. I wanted to see it with them, because one of them is a particularly sensitive, kind friend, who has a very wonderful way of talking and listening to me in grief. The reason seeing this movie was tough, was because my dad, grandmother and I, all used to go see the Harry Potter movies. My dad was a very loving, big-hearted person, who could be very much like a child sometimes, and enjoyed the series with childish glee, while at the same time being able to greatly discuss the deeper meanings it spoke to him. My grandmother loved to be able to sit with her oldest son and grand-daughter for a bit of fun.

My dad and I would talk about these films, and others, for hours, on driving trips to hikes all over the place. In one sense, I really missed my dad after we saw it, because I was bursting to talk with him about it (and did talk about it a bit with my friends). In another sense though, as I watched the movie, I felt like my father was sitting next to me, because I could imagine how he would laugh with me at certain parts, and feel emotional at others.

I went bowling. It was fun, I thought I would be horrible at it, but I wasn't.

Boo - I haven't hiked. I've thought of it...I went swimming at a spot that reminded me of my dad...but I haven't hiked yet, at any place we went to together. Part of me would like to, because my heart has grown up with that love of nature, and I yearn to be outside amongst tall trees. But another part of me is just scared...and sad, at the idea of going hiking without him. It would be so lonely. And when I think of going, even with a good friend, it feels sortof...wrong, like, I would compare it to hiking with him, and it would be different, and that differentness would hurt my heart. So...no hikes yet, really.

The day after my birthday was a hard day, for some reason. Maybe it was just sinking in, that my dad hadn't been there to at least wish me happy birthday over the phone. Maybe it's the fact that this is going to be my first year of life without my dad here with me. I do feel that I am growing up, responsibilities like cars and bills are homes are on my mind for the future, and just having had someone so close to me pass away, sometimes makes me feel so much older than my peers. I am in this big, pivotal part and age of my life...and my dad isn't here. That is hard.

I find myself happy a little now, sometimes, when I think of things that remind me of him. Even little things...like alien movies. =D My dad was into aliens and alien movies! So when I watched an alien movie the other day, I was laughing in my head, because I knew it was a movie my dad would have liked. Contact with things such as this, sometimes feels sortof like my dad saying 'hello.' I like those little reminders, sometimes, of my dad.

Sometimes I feel like I'm forgetting things...so when I get reminders, this sortof rush of relief, of, "You still remember some things about him, you still have this" comes to me.

Anyway, pardon my rambling. Thank you all so much for your sweet messages.

love and (((hugs))) to all,

Chai

[Boo Mayhew]

Chai! Seeing your name on the Board today made me smile, properly smile :-)

I'm glad you're back and was so happy to read that some good friends had taken you out for your birthday. And equally happy to hear that you are feeling a little happiness in your own life again, and understand what you mean about the alien movie.

You are braver than I. I am waiting for the Harry Potter movie to come out on DVD because I can't trust myself not to start howling!

I know how much you love nature, but it's good that you are recognizing your own limits right now ... i.e. you don't feel ready to do the hikes. One day :-) You will know when you are ready, and you may cry, but they will be good healing tears instead of the deep primal gut-wrenching ones.

It is unfair that you have been shoved into total adulthood, and suddenly. Your Dad taught you well though, and you have a solid strong foundation thanks to him. Likewise my parents and Cliff left me with a strong foundation and I sometimes wonder if that was their greatest gift to me. We are lucky in that respect and some people aren't. Hold onto that and smile.

So glad to see you back, was getting worried (clucky hen!)

xx

[mlg]

Chai,

I am so sorry that I missed your b'day. I'm glad it was reasonably good.

Some day you will be able to hike, but maybe in a different place with someone you love. Then the memories will be new.

I am so glad things are getting a little easier and that you still have friends that will listen on those "bad"days. You know that we are always here too.

I hope school will go well for you this year and be a little easier than last spring.

[Chai]

Thank you, Boo and Mary Linda.

It is certainly good to have friends on those bad days. this one friend of mine, I think had my dad ever met her, he would have liked her very much. She is very childlike and mystical. She isn't much of a hiker, but when I talk about my dad, she really listens. She really cares. She says she wishes she could have met him. I think they would have gotten along well, and part of me is sad they didn't meet. But it is good of her to be so willing to listen to me talk about him; I think, I don't take advantage of her listening ear enough, really.

I like this idea, of having a strong foundation built for us by our loved ones. That way, we don't feel so much as if we are stumbling towards out futures; rather, because of our loves ones, we are less likely to stumble, because they were there to start us off on our paths. The foundation is so important. Without my dad's love and his healing nature, I don't think I would be doing as well as I am. I think of his serenity, and how kindly he treated others, and it enables me to be kind with myself, now when I really need it.