This kid.

He turns nine this week.  The age when you really start to figure out the difference between yourself and the outside.  Straddling the worlds: the adult realm, with all it’s practicalities and demands, and the dreamy internal world of the child, of imagination and possibilities.

He has a quicksilver brain, this kid.  Sharp as a tack, and one step ahead of most of us.  Always figuring, sorting and seeing things from a different angle.  I can’t wait to see the things he will think, the ideas he will create.  His life stretches before him with so much potential, so many choices, so much yet to do.

He shares his birthday with another great man.  A man who has built a life around acts of service.  A man who is highly respected in his field and in his life, not only through the work of his clever hands and clever mind, but for the way he gives his full heart into everything he does.  He cares about the true core of people.  You know this by the way he looks into your eyes as you tell your stories.  He connects.

But now some of the connections in his brain have gone awry, and it takes longer for him to share his thoughts with you.  It’s not as easy for his dextrous hands to perform tasks that used to be so simple.

So just as my boy has his path stretching out in front of him, with so many forks, and so many possibilities, this soft spoken man has had some of his paths cordoned off.  New roads will be more difficult to travel, the well-worn ones will be safer and surer.

Until, well, who knows?  Medical advancements, new technologies?

But until then, his potential is restricted.

You are well loved, both of my birthday twins.  And you have both loved well.

Happy Birthday to all the Virgos.