Oldest Daughter (left) and Middle Daughter, preparing to see the Art Institute's new Modern wing.
Middle Daughter turns 20 today.She is one of those rare individuals whose child-self shines through her adult self. As a child, she was dreamy, distracted, funny, very loving, resolutely happy. As an adult, she is still all those things. To have known her for 17 years is to have watched her grow lovely translucent layers -- a sweet onion of a human being.
Middle Daughter is perceptive -- so perceptive, it seems, that it's sometimes painful to her. She sees her own foibles and everyone else's, too: she can forgive others very easily, but not herself. As a child of divorce, she learned to mediate between worlds before she even understood that that's what she was doing. Never one to be forced into taking sides, she simply interpreted one "side" to the other, moving between parental realms with a diplomat's tact and a ballerina's grace.
Middle Daughter has a restlessness, a hint of reckless abandon about her. You sense that at any moment, she could throw everything over and be living in a DP camp in Zimbabwe, giving tetanus shots and reading stories to refugee children. Or traveling across India with someone she just met. And even as you interpreted this seismic life-shift to curious friends and judgmental relatives, she'd suddenly be back in college, double-majoring in economics and social work, earning all A's and still managing to follow Phish or Dave Matthews across the country.
Last night the extended family came to our house to fete Middle Daughter. It was a scene of hilarity and mayhem. On a beautiful, breezy summer night, Middle Daughter was surrounded with love (and repeatedly startled by the whoosh-BOOM of Gabe's potato cannon firing instant hash-browns into the office park behind our back yard), partially hidden behind a brown-glass forest of beer bottles, as the 20-something cousins (with only a little help from the elders) polished off all the Leinenkugel the state of Wisconsin had brewed in the past week.
Sadly, my aged and revered parents, who spent the weekend with us, were unable to stay for the party. My mother did a gainer with a half-twist off the back step of our patio, landing firmly on her rump -- the only place on her with enough padding to forestall serious damage. A little shook up but fortunately not seriously hurt, she and the Old Man returned to my sister's city abode yesterday afternoon. This morning, I asked the Old Lady whether she shouldn't go see a doctor. "Well, I'm a little sore," she said, "but what are they gonna do: put my ass in a sling?" Her sense of humor has suffered no fractures. Nor, thank God, has any other part of her.
Middle Daughter was kind of enough to duck out of the festivities last night and call my mom, see how she was, and tell her she was missed at the party.
In toasting her, I told Middle Daughter that she and Oldest Daughter were tied for "second most important woman in my life." What else cold I say? The One True Wife gifted me not just with Gabe, but with two remarkable girls -- as different as could be, as close as any siblings -- two people who taught me to parent, called me on my bullshit, forgave me my moods, are remarkable big sisters, and who know how to party.
Middle Daughter is bursting with potential, intelligence, love, wit, wisdom. Middle Daughter is mercurial, whimsical, philosophical. Middle Daughter is 20. Time -- and so much else -- is on her side.
Happy birthday, dear Middle Daughter -- and many more.
--T.A.
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