happy birthday sammy.

Dear Sammy,

Happy birthday Sam. It's March 4th today, your birthday, and I hope wherever you are, that you are celebrating it with mom and marvin, with grandma and grandpa, grandmother and grandfather. I hope that neville is there, it would be nice to see his smile and grin again. if yann is cutting the cake, do tell him that i celebrated my birthday with lars this december and that it's always great to hang with his bro. of course, clara sends her love to you and to ellen, we all do in fact, and please give mom a big hug and big kiss for me and tell her that pops and dave and i are all doing well, sticking together like always, and that we miss her and love her.

Sammy, you'd be 27 today and though i wasn't there, i do remember your last birthday here on earth. you were in cali and i think davey might have been out there for it. either that or he came around this time. i think you guys went to coachella. alex might have gone with you guys too. though i was abroad i made you that birthday video greeting card with the help of the world's largest democracy. sometimes i go into dad's room and watch it on my computer. it makes me smile but it also makes me cry. i miss you more than i think is possible to ever express and i don't think it will ever go away.

just five years ago we were still hanging. i know the times were tough, but we still were together watching t.v. on late spring afternoons. and we got out a little too that summer and not just to the hospital and shit. remember that great walk you and i and alex and pops went on across the brooklyn bridge? man, i misjudged the distance that day, dad was making fun of me and we all got to where we were going, which by the way, i've forgetten what our destination was that day...

i was talking to uncle hardy at the end of last summer about that late august dinner we had in long island. remember we bought a whole fish and ev-doggs cooked it. hardy and shelly were there, plus d and i and ev and alex. i just looked at the photo, it was the 7 of us.

oh yeah, i got an email from nelly today in gaborone. i don't think she knew it was your birthday, but she just emailed to say hello. i told her it was your birthday and that the stars or the heavens must've hinted it to her and perhaps that's why she wrote. she had a baby girl a month or two back, her name is lone dawn. everybody in botswana says hello and they miss you too.

sammy, it's been five years. how time flies? and i do have to admit, it seems just like yesterday we were all hanging. i think probably for the rest of my life it will feel like that, even when i'm old and gray and perhaps even a grandpa, but who knows. like pops says, one day at a time.

and though i see and think about you everyday, when storms roll in and waves crash and pops harks that the peregrine falcon is on the balcony, i can't wait to see you soon.

be sure to say hello to everyone when you reach their shores, the fams in montevideo and santiago, in dehradun and pune, by the ebro and through the okavango, over pints in dublin and derry, the five boroughs and beyond...

i love you sam.

happy birthday, ben