Dear Jennifer:

It gives me great joy to help celebrate your fortieth birthday.  As the saying goes, "it seems like yesterday" when I was pacing the floor awaiting your arrival into this world. For me, you were the next link in the chain  -- as you have now experienced two more links in Ruby and Ben -- and proof that life truly goes on in both its wonder, awe and, yes, pain.  Your arrival was well worth the wait.  It has been wonderful to watch you grow,  toddle, and  know your grandparents, to hear you talk (and talk), go to school, and become a loving (and bossy) sister, to delight in your being an amateur detective and editor and to watch you scoot around the bases and the tennis courts,  to being  convinced by you -- despite my doubts -- that all the other kids were really doing all the wonderful things that you too  wanted to do,  to your meeting and greeting Jan and becoming part of our larger family,  to hear you singing your heart out as Mame and then seeing you off to college,  to your becoming a creative (and oh so clever) writer,  and  then seeing you fall in love and  marry Seth (quite a catch, by the way), to having Ruby (another girl!), then Ben (what;'s that thing?), and  coming home to Hamp (o.k.,  Florence).  Strange as it may seem, it has been wonderful as well to see you get through hard times with energy, a seriousness of purpose and an unmatched sense of humor, and to watch you grow into the perfect person you are (in the cosmic sense!).  With Jan, I look forward as  you let life continue to unfold. 

Happy fortieth.  It is a wonderful milestone.  

All my love.  Dad