“Enjoy your last day of 22,” I said to Keats last night.

“Mom,” she said. “I’m 23.”

This was both an embarrassing mistake and exciting news to me. I hadn’t wanted to tell her this, but 24 sounded so much more magical and sweeter than 23. She’d already done the harder year and now the cake year was a handful of hours away!

My daughter is patient with me and my brain that doesn’t hold numbers or names or…often…logic.

Now, this morning, she is 24. Twenty-four years ago I was convinced I was going to split in half giving birth to her. It makes no sense: a baby emerging from a place so small and tender.

So much of life makes no sense, and that’s what keeps things interesting. Take Cirque du Soleil. One seemingly impossible act after another. The body can do that?!

Take the life of Representative John Lewis. A man can sustain that much mental and physical abuse and illuminate wherever he stood with the glory of conviction and self-respect?

My aunt taught a class on literature and The Woman Warrior was part of her syllabus. One of the students misread the title and wrote a paper on The Woman Worrier. I wish I could read that paper. I want to know what the student had to say about a book she may or may not have read. I want to know what happens when you change a warrier into a worrier.

When I gave birth to my daughter 24 years ago, I did not dream she would be raising money for #stopasianhate after a shooting at an Atlanta spa left eight people dead and one wounded. I am aware that this, on my part, is another example of white privilege blindly walking through life, admiring the daisies while others suffer.

I have deep respect for my daughter’s heart and courage. When she was much younger, we sat on the couch together and watched xoxo. During a waterboarding scene I was crying and having a hard time keeping my eyes on the screen. I asked her why she wanted to watch this movie. “I need to know what is happening.” she said.

We live to bear witness. But our children, also, do they have to bear witness to the hate that is in the world, too? It feels unthinkable. Preciousness faced with atrocity. Oil and water.

But that is life. Some animals eat their young.

The older I get, the more and more clear one thing becomes to me: we need each other. We are here to love, and everything else is confusion. Every time I see John Lewis’s face I burst into tears. He carries it all right there: pain and joy and resilience and the holy nature of being a human. When he died, well, I don’t want to talk about that. I don’t believe he is gone. All that goodness doesn’t just disappear.

On her birthday, my daughter is matching people’s donations with money of her own to help support Asian businesses that are struggling during COVID. It’s easier to think that birthdays are about cake and presents and wishes for untold happinesses. But the truth is that when we are birthed into life we get the whole Pandora’s Box.

And then we get to open it.

And hold hands, and breathe, and sing.

Happy birthday to you.

Happy birthday to you.

Happy birthday, dear Keats.

Happy birthday to you.

If you are interested in donating, here is the Instagram link: https://www.instagram.com/p/CMikr_gJiY9/?igshid=yekr24xlp0jq