Zed turns 18

Today is Zed's birthday. Birthdays are special for everybody, but for a kid who's survived brain cancer - it's almost the fifth anniversary of his diagnosis two weeks after his thirteenth birthday - there's even more reason for joyous celebration.

And definitely a prayer giving thanks that we lived to see this day.

I've been asking Zed for weeks what he wanted - a party? What would he like for a present? He wasn't really able to think of anything. One consequence of what he's been through: his appetites are muted. He doesn't have acquisitive glee, he doesn't chow down with the gusto one expects from a teenager. In fact, sometimes he has to be reminded to eat. It's not as extreme as it was a year or two ago, when I worried that he had only one foot in this world. But it still seems unnatural that I can offer him his favorite ice cream and receive a kindly "no thanks."

He did ask me, though, to bake him a birthday carrot cake. I made it last night so it could "mature" and we just had some for breakfast (recipe to follow). That was a lot of candles!

Then, as every year since he was born, and before that with Melina, I put on John McCutcheon's "Birthday Song" from the album Howjadoo. I just discovered you can download it legally for free at Amazon.com ... Go ahead and download it. Now play it, even if it isn't your birthday. It is customary to dance and sing along.