As I pass the 73 year milemarker and see my family around me, one of my deepest hopes is that when each of you should reach this same milemarker, each of you will have had the same amazing privelage of life fullfillment as my 73 years has given me.

I hope that if you should be given the gift of children, I hope that your children may be as wonderful as my children …

If you should be given grandchildren my hope is that they will be equally as wonderful as mine.

Importantly, if your children should find partners … may these partners be as wonderful as the partners my children have been blessed with.

If you choose another course than any of these, may it be as wonderful as the life varied course that my 73 years has been.

Should these things be your story, you will have reached the highest heights that life can reach – That is how I feel today.

Not to be ignored, my life has contained some major bumps in the road … and undoubtably none of you will be spared this life ingredient completely either. So when or if it should be, I hope that you will understand that however painful or major these experiences may be, as I have found, the capacity for recovery and continued fulfillment is ALWAYS within you if you want it to be.