Teddy, you’re 26 years old today. I don’t know where the years have gone; it feels like they flew by. I’m pretty sure that yesterday you were running away to Gramma Izzie’s house down the hill and smashing into Janeesa’s dollhouse of Barbies with your Godzilla action figure and sitting on the counter, eating sugar right out of the canister with a spoon.

I’m so proud of you, Teddy. You have become the kind of man that every mother is proud to call her son: forthright, inclusive, loving, caring, dedicated to calling out wrongs when you see them, and unafraid to be a voice of dissent when you see things that need changed in the world.

I am so proud of you!

Love, Mom