Welcome

It's your first night in a strange place. You hear sounds and feel sensations you've never experienced before. The fabric against your skin, the silence of night without a constant heartbeat. Beyond the fragile film of your eyelid, there are pinpoint-bright blurs.

You are new in the world. Today you were one of roughly 490,000 babies born. To the world you are not special; you are a statistic, a future voter, a future consumer, future driver, worker, taxpayer.

What makes you different? We do. Your family. A father who loses his temper so rarely that for years it was thought not to exist. A mother whose only object in life was to be your mother. A brother... well, what a brother! You'll see. Grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, pets. We waited so long for you.

Happy birthday, Hezekiah Bruce Morris. I can't wait to meet you.