defining moments – 3

Steve asked me recently what five defining moments in my life have made me who I am today…

1. Swim meet
2. African sky
3. My twenty-second birthday was perhaps my best birthday yet.  I went with Lizzie to the Museum of Nature and Science, and Stephen got us fifth row tickets to The Fray concert at City Lights Pavillion.  But the best part of that birthday was the morning.
   I opened my door to a trail of rose petals.  The petals led me down the stairs and around to the kitchen where a vase of beautiful crimson roses sat beside three sheets of paper.  One sheet read simply “Happy Birthday.”  One was a poem by Lord Byron, “She Walks in Beauty.”  And one was a letter from my father, telling me why he chose the roses and the poem, and how much I mean to him.
   I’ve always known that my dad loves me.  I’m the only daughter, so all the “daughter love” was channeled solely to me.  And he always treated me so well, the bar was already set high for any other man in my life.  On my twenty-second birthday, he raised the bar a little higher.
   I felt truly beautiful.  If no one else loved me, I was completely loved by my father.  There is something about that certainty that enhanced my confidence and my demeanor.  I knew he wasn’t just lavishing kind words out of obligation.  I really am that lovely.

“She Walks in Beauty”
by Lord Byron

She walks in beauty like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to the tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One ray the more, one shade the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress
Or softly lightens o’er her face,
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

And on that cheek and o’er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

What moments define you?