His mother turned 30 on the Dingle Peninsula in Ireland. He turns 30 today in Hawaii. His father (me) has no memory of turning 30, so I assume it was a good party.

Thirty is a nice round number, a mile marker on the road of life. Since he was born, our planet has circled th sun 30 time, and rotated on its axis almost 11,000 times. It’s funny how fast 11,000 days can go if you’re not paying attention.

When they wheeled him out of the delivery room, he had his four grandparents there for the adoration. The last of them died in October, so this will be his first birthday without any of them. In a couple of weeks, my dad, if he was still alive, would turn 100. Just another mile marker on that road.

Life throws a lot of things at you as time passes. Some you can prepare for and some you really can’t. I was not prepared for the amount of joy and love my son would bring into my life. Even words like joy and love seem puny to classify the experiences behind them.

May you have the happiest of birthdays, my boy, and a boatload more where they came from!