Monday, September 24, 2012

Happy Birthday, Cassie Mei!

It's hard for me to fathom that just one year ago Cassie was celebrating her very own birthday for the very first time ever with her ayis and children at Zhongshan orphanage.  





















While on the other side of the world was another little girl blowing out seven candles in her honor.






















Now here we are,  Just one year later.  Today the girls busied themselves preparing for our little birthday party to celebrate Cassie Mei turning eight years old!























And while I do not have a picture of Cassie blowing out her candles, since we decided to record it, I do have other pictures to share with you of this monumental day.























For close to four months now, Cassie has been asking me if i would cry for her on her birthday.  You see, on Sonya's birthday in May, while I read to her the birthday card from her father and me, I cried.  I couldn't help it.  

Once even, Cassie brought over a birthday card for me to read to her while we were shopping in the card section at our local Walgreens.  She had first asked me which cards were for daughters.  And then she picked out a card and handed it to me to read to her.  I knelt before her and looked up into her tentative little face and read this birthday card, and do you want to know something, it was perfect for how I feel about her, and rest assured I cried..

Now the moment Cassie had been waiting for for so long finally presented itself to her.  After the dinner, after the cake, and now finally the card from Mommy and Daddy.  It was time for her very own Mommy to read her birthday card to her....   Also recorded, yet we do have pictures of what followed.





 


















It was not easy finding a card for Cassie since most cards for daughters talk about loving them since birth or the other cards which speak of what great mothers these daughters themselves have turned out to be....

But there was one..... And it was perfect.... And I cried while I read it in the store.  And i cried again while i read it to beautiful Cassie Mei.  Here it goes:

What does the word daughter mean?

It means loving more than you knew you could love.

It means laughing harder than you knew you could laugh.

It means learning when you thought you were supposed to be doing the teaching.

It means giving more than you knew you could give.  It means receiving so much more in return. 

It means sharing a connection that keeps surprising you with its depth and strength.

It means feeling a kind of pride you never knew before.  

It means seeing your hopes fulfilled in ways much sweeter than you could have imagined.  

It means knowing that whatever else you did or didn't do, you gave the world something beautiful. 

Happy Birthday To a Beautiful Daughter.

Happy Birthday, Cassie!  I thank my God in Heaven for you!