Happy 28th birthday, Laura. May the coming 12 months be healthy, joyous, productive, and prosperous ones for you and those around you whom you love.

Good morning Laura: Dec. 23, 1996, was a wonderful day. Every year at this time, God is thanked for sending you into our family to brighten the world a little bit and lift the spirits of everyone whose lives have been touched by your kindness and intelligence. Know that your family continues to root and cheer for you as you make your way through life, like a shooting star, guiding others with your wisdom and touching the lives of those you meet along the way. A precocious child, you never failed to impress your paternal grandparents with you ability to reason and verbalize things at a time when other children were still trying to string letters together and form words. It was as though you were in a hurry and had the knowledge and raw horsepower well before your peers. Your paternal grandfather reminded us frequently that: "To those to whom God gave much, much was expected.". From where I sit, Laura, you have always been a contributor, a hard worker, and a tireless defender of the rights of others. From the impoverished corn farmer in Mexico to the vulnerable and unrepresented LEX client in Montreal, you have been in their corner. It remains my hope that the love and joy of a father for his daughter will be felt and received. Like a distant star in a far off galaxy, I shall persist in transmitting light and heat long after my inner force has extinguished... In the hope that even just a glint or a glimmer will one day land on your cheek and be felt not as a sunburn but as a flickering glow of warmth and unconditional, unadulterated love. Stay well, dear Laura in the coming year. Continue to use all your talents, communications ability and fine brain in service to others. You have your Mom's raw intelligence and sense of justice. Use it in service to others. The life path of the gifted child is never easy yet it can be most rewarding. None of us will make it out alive. The best we can hope to achieve is to somehow lighten the load for others along the way. Service towards others is what leads to joy and happiness, I believe. For your paternal grandfather it was his modus operandi,.. his natural state. He led by example and thought by living a good, clean, exemplary life, Laura. And, like the rest of us, Austin Edward cheered the day you entered the world. Dec. 23, 1996. May you feel only the love and warm embrace of an extended family that loves you unconditionally, that is proud of your many talents and how you are putting them to use in service of others, of your inner and outer beauty and intelligence. Happy birthday, today, Laura. Know that you are loved and that your love is felt by others including me. With love, Dad