You turned 25 years old today!  A quarter of century!  What an amazing journey that we both shared!

You said “Thank you for letting me to find my own way, to be myself!”

I wanted to say “It is the same here.  Thank you for allowing me to grow up with you.  Thank you for teaching me how to be a mother.”

You were such an independent child.  You’re intelligence and comprehension of life is beyond me.  We walked on the learning path of growing up together.   I needed to learn how to be a mother without losing my curious heart and be a woman, and you needed to grow up from a little boy to a man.   It seemed that you had guided me more than I had guided you on the path toward this date.   On this day - you are definitely a grown man, and a fine human being. 

This is the day that I finally have to walk on my own life journey by myself!  How I wish that I am brave enough to do so!  But, I have to. 

When others praised me as a good mother, when others asked what my secret was, I truly didn’t know what to say.  It wasn’t my doing.  It was your life condition, your karma, and your early awakening to the law of causality, cause and effect.   Your absorption of the concept that Buddhism is living and it is life. Your understanding of the coexistent relationship of ten worlds was beyond my own ability at your age.  If I was going to take the credit as a good mother, I could only accept that I had instilled Buddhism in you.  But, without your own curiosity of learning and practicing Buddhism, you wouldn’t be who you are today.  I truly couldn’t take the credit for it.

I will always remember the defining moment for both us.  I will always remember the day - you came home, and locked your father outside the door, then bellowed at me “I am so glad WE divorced him!”  And I opened the door calmly saying to you “I still need to talk to your father about the weekend.”

That was the moment that I was no longer worried about the damage I had done to you by divorcing, because you comprehended the reasons why your parents couldn’t live together under one roof.   That was the moment that you understood, no matter what had happened to our family structure, your parents would work together to raise you, and you would have two parents in your life always.  That was the moment that we both embarked on our life journey together with laughter, yelling, crying, rebelling, testing, dreams, curiosity about life, arts and sciences, passion about our ideologies and what it meant to love someone without reserve.

Now, Happy Birthday to both of us – a beginning of a new chapter.

Year 2011