Birthday Gratitude

Dear Friends,

Thank you so much for all of the birthday love I have received this weekend.  It truly means the world to me and I would be remised if I did not take this opportunity to express my gratitude to all of you for taking a few moments to brighten my day.  As many of you know I turned the ripe old age of 34 this Bastille Day.  I have been blessed to have been given these years with great health and the love of friends and family.  As this is the second year that I have been blessed to have my daughter in my life, it also paints a new perspective of what a birthday truly means and how special that moment is when a person takes their first breath.

If you are still reading this, then I hope can read just a few more paragraphs of thoughts that I would like to share with you.  Through my years here on earth, I have been blessed with a family who loves me unconditionally.  I have found the love of my life in Mandi, and have been blessed with a beautiful daughter in Kaia.  I have friends from Key West to Boston and across this country to Hawaii that are some of the finest people I have ever met.   To say I am blessed and content, is probably one of the biggest understatements one could make.  Yet in all of our correspondence, letters, conversations, emails, post and tags, I have never expressed to anyone my feelings and thoughts on the essence of life.  As many of you know, I am a Christian.  I have a very strong faith in Jesus Christ and the God that is his father.  I share this in no way to cause division of those people of other faiths or those who choose to have none at all, my reasoning for explaining this is to allow a certain perspective of my thoughts.

 A few years ago I spent a few months in Jamaica exploring the depth of my faith and other religions around the world.  My quest for knowledge and truth led me down many paths, none of which had all of the answers, but all carried the same ethos of Love.  Whether it were the teaching of Mohammed, Jesus, Buddha, Tao, or the God of Abraham, they all taught on the power of love.  The bible sums this up in two basic principles that I have adopted for my life:  Love God with all your heart and Love your neighbor as you would love yourself.  Very basic, very simple, yet so forgotten in our day to day trappings of life. 

Love God and Love One Another.  If I could ever offer one nugget of information that you took away in whatever relationship we have had, it would be this.  I know for those who choose other paths than Christianity, this may seem foreign, but whatever you choose in life, showing love to your creator (whatever you decide that to be) puts life in a certain perspective, understanding the relationship that exist between a parent and a child is similar to that between you and your creator.  Second, loving your neighbor brings to thought that we all share this third rock from the sun.  Showing love to your neighbor just as you have shown me great love on my birthday can only brighten the days of everyone me meet. 

 I truly love each one of you from the bottom of my heart.  If I can ever be of any assistance to you along your life’s journey, please do not hesitate to let me know.  I hope you all have a blessed year and again, thank you for all of the wonderful birthday wishes.