Happy 16th Birthday, Alana

Today, you should be sixteen.

I knew this birthday was coming. But knowing it was coming and actually waking up to it are two different things.

It has only been a year since we celebrated your last birthday with you. A year since birthdays were something we got to plan with you instead of something we now have to figure out how to get through without you.

Sixteen was supposed to be a big one.

We should be celebrating with you today. We should be watching you become more independent, talking about driving, making plans, and spending time with your friends. We should have spent the last year working on the truck that sits in the driveway.

Instead, there is an empty space where all of that should be.

The truck still sits there. A reminder of what should have been.

And I hate it.

I don't have to wonder who you would have been at sixteen. I knew you. I knew your personality, your sense of humor, your stubbornness, your kindness, the things you loved, and the things that drove you crazy.

What hurts is knowing we were so close to seeing this next part of you.

I wonder what would have changed over this past year. What new things you would have discovered. What you would be excited about right now. What your plans would be for color guard. What sixteen-year-old Alana would have taught us about the person she was becoming.

Those are the things that were taken from us.

I wish I could tell you happy birthday today and hear you answer me.

I wish I could embarrass you by making too big of a deal about turning sixteen. I wish I could watch you roll your eyes at me. I wish we were arguing about where you wanted to go for dinner, what you wanted for your birthday, or what we were going to do to celebrate.

I would give anything for those ordinary moments.

But your birthday is still your birthday.

And we will still celebrate you.

This year, over a hundred people came together for Alana's Eternal Light 5K. They ran and walked beneath an evening sky in your name, some not making it back until the light in the sky had faded to black. Friends, family, businesses, volunteers, and even people who never had the chance to meet you showed up because your life mattered, and it still matters.

There is something both beautiful and heartbreaking about that.

Then the next day, your friends came over to visit. They set off confetti cannons in your honor and had some cake and ice cream.

Lighting the candles was unbearable.

There was no song wishing you a happy birthday. Just a moment of silence before Allison blew out the candles I had lit for you.

I would trade every event, every donation, every scholarship, every person we help, and everything we have built over the last year for one more birthday with you.

But that isn't a choice we get to make.

So we keep carrying you forward.

Your name will be attached to kindness.

It will help families when life suddenly becomes unbearable. It will give students opportunities. It will support kids, like you did when you helped them with their buses. It will help animals, like you did when you insisted we take any hurt or stray animal to Oaken Acres. It will support the libraries you enjoyed, the arts you were so passionate about, and all the little things you cared about.

It will remind people that compassion and kindness matter.

None of that replaces you.

It isn't supposed to.

It is simply one of the ways we continue being your parents. We can no longer take care of you in the ways we once did, so we take the love we still have for you and put it somewhere it can do some good.

Sixteen years ago, you came into our lives.

You changed our family forever.

And while this is the first birthday we have had to face without you here, nothing about today changes the fact that you are still our daughter. You are still part of our family. We still talk about you. We still say your name. We still love you just as fiercely as we did when you were standing right here with us.

Today hurts.

I imagine your birthday always will.

But underneath all of that pain is love.

We loved you when you were here.

We love you now.

And we will love you for every birthday we should have been able to celebrate together.

Happy 16th birthday, Alana.

I hope you know how many people said your name this week.

I hope you saw them running beneath the sky for you.

And I hope you know that your light is still here.

Happy birthday, kiddo.

Love, Dad