You were the biggest risk I ever took, and it took me all of five seconds to decide to take it. I don’t think there was a person on the planet who thought it was a good idea for me to have you (or rather, the concept of you, not you, if that makes any sense at all) but every single one of those people today thinks that you are just one of the greatest people around.

No, you don’t have a list of accomplishments like your sisters, but even when you were small you had the gift of making me laugh hard at least once a day. True story: soon after you started your Super Sam comic strip, you drew one about the birth of Super Sam. You showed a long shot of a hospital, with a voiceover describing a baby being born, with the doctor exclaiming about Super Sam’s mother, “That is one happy woman!”

Another true story: you know more about current events than most adults. You could get a job today as a docent at the Desert Botanical Garden, given how much you know about desert flora. (Did any of us know that ponderosa pines were ‘self-trimming,’ a fact that was shared yesterday while we swept up a million needles?) You have patiently taught me about my favorite game, Civilization Revolution, and I discovered this weekend while you were camping that it just isn’t the same to play it without you.

So I’m a little sad today, your sixteenth birthday. I know that I have about two or three years left of playing my game before it just won’t be the same anymore.

I have said this before to you privately, but today I will shout it from the rooftops: If I had had any idea what a wonderful person you would be, I would have gone out of my way to make sure I had you. You were the craziest idea I ever had, and just possibly one of the best.

You were right: that is, indeed, one happy woman.

Love you, Sam!