HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD

68 years old ... but forever 64. 
I'd give anything to see you again. To hear your voice. To go to Tractor Supply or Sonic or to a bookstore with you. I want to know what Heaven looks like from your perspective. I'd love to talk with you about this caregiving path I'm on. Sometimes, it seems like yesterday when you had to leave ... while other times, it seems like it was forever ago. 
As I think back over your life, I continue to marvel at how the LORD intervened on your behalf. Yours was a life marked by great darkness. Struggle. Sin and shame. But Jesus!
Jesus took your heart of stone and gave you a heart of flesh. Jesus dispelled the darkness that plagued your life by shining HIS eternal light into your soul. Years of struggle ceased. Sins forgiven, and your shame is no more.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD!
I don't know how birthdays are celebrated in Heaven ... or if they're celebrated, but I'd like to think that you are sharing a two-tiered strawberry cake with Jesus. That you can eat without dealing with the constant tremors, stemming from Essential Tremor Disorder ... and without worrying about diabetes. That you are able to have a one-on-one conversation with your father ... my Pappaw ... a conversation that you needed to have.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD!
I hope and pray that the trajectory of my life is making you proud. And I look forward to the day when we'll be together forever ... when there will never be another goodbye, another tear, and there will be no more pain. 
HAPPY 68th BIRTHDAY, DAD!
​I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU!