Katelyn Mary….
This is an open letter to you …days before your 36^th birthday on March 8th, 2018.

I’ve been sitting here at my desk wondering where time has gone, while you have been busy emerging from adolescence into womanhood.  Happy Birthday you have earned it!

I know reading any of my blog posts would be painful to the English professor side of you.  I misuse words and am horrible with punctuation. I don’t know a comma from a semicolon except to separate stuff which I often do using a series of periods ………  I write because I love words, stories and expressing ideas. Using my own writing style helps me to exercise that love in a way that is unique to me. Not perfect …. yet earnest.

It makes me proud to know you love language and understand punctuation to the extent that any misuse of it causes you to experience visceral, physical pain.  It’s OK …I get it….that’s how you are wired.

As a kid, you always loved books and tended lose yourself in them as you read. Your interests varied widely which motivated you to plowed through a wide variety of topics, stories and poems. Through the years you developed expert skills to analyze and research all manner of works to support your scholastic endeavors.

Now, you teach critical thinking in your classes and embellish works as your students examine the authors, cultures, time periods, and genres.  At an early age you developed a passion for literature which you used to lay the foundation for success in your role as an English professor.  Finding clues to the deeper meaning in books, stories, plays, and poems is the key which you now use to unlock interest, passion and learning among your students.

During our father / daughter conversations, I know you silently correct my grammar in your mind and politely smile away the urge to scream, stop, stop, stop!  I am proud of you and what you have become.  Know ….that if you should ever read this open letter, that these are the things that make your Dad happy.

P.S. Also, Thank you for my wonderful red headed (ginger) grandson…Aengus the Red… and his Dad… Adam.  I love them both.

P.S.S. Find a way to ensure Aengus is included in my coven of granddaughters.  Its been close knit up to now, he’ll need to beguile his way in.