This post is to THANK all my followers and fans. I am happy to know that, at thirty-two, I am inspiring more and more people and that is what makes me want to master my craft even more.

I’m surrounded with my loved ones tonight after a not-so-little get-together birthday bash. The cat snuggles against my feet for warmth in the balmy spring air. Life cannot be more pleasant than this. We are so grateful for everything that happened that fateful morning when we almost unravelled at the sight of a stranger in our living room. He was there sitting nonchalantly as if there is no better place he would choose to be.

He wrote to me once and said he was my pop. There was a mistake in my paternity or he doubted my mom’s fidelity, and he went on to trace a series of mishaps which separated us. But the stories ended there and I am here, flesh and blood, with all of my loved ones. All the past rushing up on me, like a bad nightmare that keeps on repeating when you sleep. So, I am a foundling child left on the doorstep of a church by my stepdad? Now, who’s my mom? As if I could care now, after all those years…

I went to him as in a trance, and there he was, looking exactly like me – the eyes, the hair, the lift of the nose and the full lips. What would you do if you see a person looking like you were staring at a mirror? So, he got up and extended his hand in a cordial handshake. Thank God, he did not try to embrace me like in those movies where father meets daughter for the first time. Who would have guessed, too, that he was a writer like me?

Marco – my dad – had a lopsided grin like I did. He is from the Zeffirelli clan. Or is it another Zeffirelli? I think I have seen his credits somewhere. So, I am a love child of an Italian and my mom is French. Ah, who would have guessed that I have an overdose of tragedy in me? The meeting was pleasant and surreal. It was also the first intelligent conversation I had with a man after so many years. So now, on my birthday, I am blissfully thankful that my creator has been looking inside my weary heart.

P.S. My dad could not pick a better date to show up. Years or lifetimes apart, family is family. I’m grateful for them every day.

Happy birthday to me,

Sandra Ross