Happy Birthday, Mr. President

Its almost August 4th, Barack Obama's birthday, and I wish him all the best. I have a lot of respect for him and I hope that he gets the chance to celebrate with his young family.

I happen to know this, because it is also my own birthday and I am honoured to share this day with a man of such esteem.

I am not much for publicly celebrating my own birthday. Few of my friends even know that it is my birthday, and I have worked hard to not promote my birthday. In short, this is by design, so pity me not.

However, I do like to mark the day by reflecting on the last twelve months and "taking Stock" as it were.

The last twelve months or so has been a profound reassessment of my own life, spurned by a series of events. This began with the death of my father in July 2008.

Soon after, I watched two young female friends put in the ground due to cancer. In October I had to put down my beloved cat, a friend of fourteen years, ironically on Thanksgiving Day.

Overwhelmed by death, I began to realize my own mortality. The fact that I had been so fortunate to not have attended a lot of funerals up to this point in my life was a blessing. Though my Dad should have lived for a few more years, at the end of the day he contributed to his own demise. Losing two fine friends to cancer who are in my age group is just plain unfair. Having to proactively participate in the demise of my beloved cat/friend of fourteen years was truly gut wrenching. I was getting used to family and friends dying, but I was still unused to actively participating in their demise.

Out of all this grief came .a realization that it could be me taking the big dirt nap at anytime. Spurned to action, I decided that I should take that trip to Ghana that I had been dreaming about for so long.

All this led to an idea of trying to do a little good . All that happened from that post led to the idea of this website .

So, as I raise my glass to absent friends, I acknowledge that their demise inspired me to do better in my own life. In the death of others, I have learned much. This past year has been the most difficult and rewarding, chock full of teachable moments.

My brother once said to me " you can run your life, or let life run you". This year I finally committed to the better choice.. The next twelve months hold possibilities that were unimaginable a year ago.

And Barack, before I blow out my candle, I'm gonna wish you all the best in your next twelve months. May the next twelve months teach as us much as the last twelve months.

Happy birthday, dude.