Happy Birthday DMW!!!!

[Katniss]

It's Yom Kippur! It's Friday the 13th! It's your birthday!

Happy Birthday to an amazingly wonderful guy. I know the past few years have been difficult ones. It seems no matter what was going on with your family, friends and loved ones that you were always the rock they leaned on. You were the one that protected them from their own consequences when others would have walked away. You always show compassion and actively try and make the world a better place. Either by direct involvement like "Occupy" or just quietly acknowledging the good we all have inside us, even when we ourselves fail to see it. You have been an amazing brother to your siblings and a strong and supportive son. I recall vividly when your father passed away early this year that while everyone else fell apart or reverted to addictive behaviors there you were, quietly making the funeral arrangements, doing what had to be done because "somebody" had to do it. You have always been the "somebody" that others have relied on and my wish for you this year is that it brings you nothing but joy, peace and happiness as that is what you deserve.

Katniss~~ (and just like way back in high school, I still got your back on the soccer field, even when you let those opposing forwards break through! <eyeroll> LoL!)


'if' by rudyard kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master,
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)