To C., on her Birthday.

You were around ten, when I took this picture of you, my elder daughter. Today you celebrate your 36th birthday. Somehow this photograph had survived the flood a few years later, in our cellar, where I had my photolab. It kept it's beauty, till today. Like you kept your beauty, through all the bigger and smaller catastrophies that were still ahead of you, when you looked out through that window, as a child. And I mean the beauty of your mind as well, it's delicacy in dealing with the people around yourself, and it's strength.

It was not easy for you, when your mother and I went separate ways, another couple of years later. You kept to be the strong one in the family, and you went on your way to your first big adventure, in South America. Only later you told me, how tough this adventure had sometimes been . I am glad I hadn't know it all, when you were so far away. But you made it. And you came back, only to plan your next adventure abroad, this time as a teacher, for six months, in a black township in South Africa. How much I admire you for your courage.

Today you are a mother yourself, having acomplished the one adventure a man will never stand up to, the adventure of giving birth to a child. How happy I am, to have you close again, with your little son and your husband, with whom you seem to be happy yourself. And, what seemed to be a catastrophy, when your mother left, gave place to what seems to me just a bigger family today, with her new husband. That's what I thought, when we all met in your house on Sunday.

May happiness stay with you in these times, where a lot of what is surrounding us is a mess. That's what I wish to you, on your birthday, and to your family.