Gifts

Today, Daddy, you would have been 79 years old. We would have gathered, celebrated another turn around the sun, toasted to you and exchanged gifts with you.

Instead, we will gather to celebrate my first book, Strength of Soul, written in part because of you. And we will reflect on the blessing it was to have had you.

May 18, 1940, the world itself received a gift, and that gift was you. You lived a life of integrity, honesty, curiosity, generosity, ferocity and joviality. Everyone who knew you was positively impacted as a result.

To have been your only daughter is one of the greatest gifts I have ever received. And to have brought forth your first grandson, in whose eyes I see you every day, is another one of the greatest gifts I have ever received.

And now, Strength of Soul is the gift of you to my son. Through it, he will know from whence he came and he will continue to create positive change, just as his Abo once did.

Today we gather to celebrate the life you lived and the legacy you left.

Today we gather to exchange the innumerable and intangible gifts you left each and every one of us.

To you, Daddy.

¡Loor al 18 de mayo de 1.940!