The Birthday Guest

#4 will be four years old in a couple weeks. She’s very excited. All she can talk abut is what she wants to do for her birthday, and where she wants to go, and what kind of cake we’re going to have. All delivered in that heart melting almost four year old girl hopping up and down excitement.

We told her she could invite ONE friend to our house for dinner and cake. Their family can come, too, of course. We all wondered which friend would be her one friend. She is our impossibly shy child and takes very few people to heart, but once she does, she loves them forever. One of her favorite people in the whole world is our very stern, very orthodox priest, Father F.

All through Mass, she whispered, “I’ll bet Farther F. likes cake. I’ll bet he likes birthday cake. Do you think he likes pizza?” After being shushed a hundred times and told to be quiet or Father would have a talk with her after Mass (and he would), she finally sat down and waited. She sat swinging her little legs, smiling to herself, and thinking….

After Mass, she ran up to the priest, hopped up and down and said, “Father F., would you be my one birthday friend? I think you like cake and pizza, and we are having cake and pizza. Will you come to my birthday?”

He looked at my tiny daughter, smiled the broadest smile and said, “I do like pizza, and I like cake, and I like you. So, yes. I will come to your birthday and be your one birthday friend.”

She nodded her head regally and pronounced, “Then you may cut my birthday cake.”