Liam is 15! What Shall We Get Him?

You've given me a list, written in curlicues and the microscopic frippery of a teen-aged boy, of some things you want for your birthday. It's pretty modest, for an about-to-be 15-year-old. Shoes. Sunglasses. Food. A phone upgrade.  A movie. A large box of sure-to-be sugary cereal of your choice. A full-body stretchy suit that covers your head and face, that you can put on to scare people. Wait. What?? Your essence, in that one line. Always surprising.

And I suppose we will go out today and buy some things, and there will be cake. It's a birthday, after all, and 15 is special. You are special.

But there's nothing we could buy for you that even approaches what you already have.

You have a family who loves you and will always catch you should you fall. Which you won't.

You have a big strong daddy who will always be your Hotdog Brother.

You have a mama who speaks sternly and evenly to you and makes you use your fork and pick up the stuff that falls off you onto the floor like autumn leaves fall from a maple. Who helps you remember all the little things you need throughout your day, and loves you to the moon and back, and is going to make an excellent, vigilant driver out of you if it kills us both. 

Oh, the places you'll go! Far down East, at least as far as you can get and stay dry.

How many of your classmates have seen a real lighthouse

 or run like a banshee along its walkway? 

Run, Forrest, Run!! This is the Marshall Point Light in Tenants Harbor, famed for being the place where Forrest Gump turned around to go home, having run as far east as he could. 

There's a great big present, right there. 

How many boys do you know who have a sister who'd come into his classroom and organize his desk each morning all through elementary school? There's a gift.

You're doing really well without her now. That's a gift she gave you, too.

You may not fully grasp it, but this little piece of coastline is yours, too. 

The tides come in and out over your rocks.

The snow settles gently in your spruces.

The sea crawls halfway up your big boulder, then stops. 

Ravens, eagles and crows flap over your seagrass, and plovers skitter on your flats. That's a gift.

When your mind drifts off, you can think about this place. You can always come here and look out over the bay.

There's nothing we could buy that gets close to that. A piece of this wonderful world.

Before you know it, it will be time for you to think about where you will go. You've got four more years in the cradle of home, but you will go, too. You probably aren't yet feeling a need to leave. But you will. You watch your sister and know you can do it, too. 

So happy birthday, wonderful boy. Though at Halloween there was still some dispute about which of you is taller, you will finally look down upon Phoebe when you see her at Christmas. You're still elongating, expanding; stretching; your brain is still rearranging its neurons as they steep in the heady hormonal stew. And we get to be there for your metamorphosis, which is every bit as wonderful as the butterfly's. 

You, young man, are loved. Happy birthday, Liam. Go forth and be FIFTEEN!!!