Dear Son,

It has been one year since you arrived in our lives. In that year you have changed me in so many ways. I never thought that I could be so in love with you.  You see when I found out you were coming, I was scared out of my mind.  I had no idea how I would be able to handle everything.  I assumed the worst.  I tend to do that (you'll figure that out as you get older).  When you got here we spent the first month of your life in the hospital.  It was so hard to see you laying there with all of those tubes and wires coming out of you.  I just wanted to take you home.  It seemed like every day the doctors would give us 1 piece of good news and 3 of bad.  I have never been as upset as I was during that time.  When we finally got to bring you home all I could think about was your upcoming heart surgery.  My boy undergoing open heart surgery was just too much for me.  And so I got angrier.  Son, my love for you was so great that I was angry.  Angry at myself, angry at your mom and sister, angry at you, angry at God.  My heart was so heavy with despair that I just couldn't focus on life.  

Now I don't want you to think that you were the cause of all of this.  No, son you were the light in a very dark place.  I let myself get to that place, but you brought me back.  You made it through that surgery like a champ.  You excel with a syndrome that many would consider a weakness.  You are a fighter.  And even though you do not know it, you fought for me!  

I told you earlier that you have changed me this year.  Here are just a few of the ways.  I am considerably less angry than I have ever been.  When I look into your face, a face that looks an awful lot like mine by the way, all I see is that precious smile and I know there is nothing this world can throw at me that has any power over me to get me angry.  

I am more faithful.  I had taken my faith for granted for many years.  Through your life I have rediscovered a strength that is not my own.  I have been reinvigorated with the sense of God's Spirit alive and at work in my life.  I have a peace that I have not known for a long time.  I have a feeling that you can see the spiritual in a way that I will never be able to.  That is probably the reason for that 24 hour smile.  

Before you were born, when I thought about our relationship it was always in terms of what  we wouldn't or couldn't do.  I see how silly that is now.  The possibilities are endless for what we can do together; for what you can be.  You are not limited.  You are not disabled.  You are blessed.  And you are mine.  

Son, there are not enough words in all of the languages of the world to describe my love for you.  You are all of the great things about life rolled into one tiny little package.  I will never be the same because of the way you have touched my heart in just one year.  And I cannot wait to see what changes are in store in the years to come.  You are the desire of this daddy's heart, my pride and joy!  

Happy first birthday!  Love, 

Daddy