I’m up early, but her birthday has already been underway for nine hours. Her 25th birthday. It’s happening in Greenwich Mean Time in the northern reaches of a tall, skinny country in West Africa, and in many ways I’m feeling very far away from Suzanne today.

But in other ways I’m not. I heard her voice less than 48 hours ago and, God willing (a phrase she’s begun to use with alarming frequency), I will again later today. I’ve had two emails recently and, within the past month, a rare and precious letter.

These, for now, will have to do. And I’m left where many parents of 25-year-olds are — to my own devices. Suzanne, after all, is her own person. They all are. And I am mine. Or at least I’m beginning to be again.

So what I think about today is not just that she is a quarter-century old, but that I’m 25 years a parent. Long enough to get the hang of it, you’d think. Not really, though.

(Photo: Katie Esselburn)