Happy Birthday, Gus

Today is Gus' birthday. He's 9.  I can hardly believe it.  I wish I knew more of the details of his birth - beyond his mom stumbled into an Orange County emergency room complaining of stomach pains and gave birth to a 6 lbs. baby boy.

Something that he'll be able to share with his family one day. A story like my Aunt Tina being born in a taxi cab, or the on-going joke between my dad and me that he didn't care enough to be there for my birth. I was already more than two weeks late, and at my mom's insistence -  and against his better judgement - he went bowling. No sooner had he left than I started pushing my way out. My Aunt Amelia took Mom to the hospital, barely getting us there in time.

What I can share with Gus is the first time I ever laid eyes on him. We were nervous knocking on the door of his foster mom's house. Gus was in a "Johnny Jumper" bouncing around. Just six months old, he looked like a little old man staring at us as we entered the room.  But for me the words to John Lennon's Beautiful Boy finally made sense. It was pretty much love at first sight for me.

And I can tell him about the first night he slept in our home. I placed a plate of sweets on the nightstand in our bedroom hoping the Fates would rewrite on his forehead a better fortune for him (it's a crazy Greek thing), and how I woke up every few minutes to reach over to make sure he was still breathing.

I can share how I remember the first time he crawled - it was on December 4th, his papou's birthday - and how we made animal sounds to make him laugh. Or how I would put him in the backpack, grab two dogs and take him on walkies with me; inevitably, he'd take his hat off and toss it at me, forcing me to ask strangers to help me put it back on him.

Hopefully he'll understand the positive impact he's had on my life. How he has influenced everything from which homes we've bought, cities we've called home, and jobs I've taken, to the fact I have another son.  All of these decisions had him top of mind.

Maybe, just maybe, that first night as he snored away in a borrowed playpen while I tossed and turned listening for signs of his continued breathing, those Fates nibbled on sweets and wrote a much better fortune for me.

Happy birthday, Gus. May you live to be 100.