Just another day unlike any other

When I sit out back on the plot of land my Dad grew up on and his dad grew up on, in Oxford, Md., everything is right with the Universe.

Our girls are running barefoot in the grass, playing with their cousins--my sister's boys--the same way we did when we were little. I'm drinking a Shiner Spring Ale because it's spring. It's also Easter. And my 40th birthday.

Though spring is a time for flowers, and we transformed a cross with fresh-cut flowers this morning at church, right now for me it's a time for roots.

I've been thinking about family a lot this week, in part because my mom's father, when my mom was in the hospital getting ready to have me, sat in the waiting room and figured out all the times my birthday would fall on Easter. This is one of those times--a day Pop held in his mind 40 years ago.

As I'm watching the kids play, my Dad comes out back. We talk about growing up there and how they used to raise chuckers and chickens, how there were ponies and pheasant and we laugh thinking how the town of Oxford would receive that now. We talk about the Orioles and Nationals, who are both off to a good start.

When I was born, it was during an April ice storm. Today is green and 60 degrees. I don't mind global warming so much if it lets me sit outside with family on an Easter birthday.

There is another significance to April 8. Robin and I have been together for 17 years. She is the kind of person you change your life for and never wonder what life had been like if you'd never met.

Birthday, Easter, soul mate day. That's a trinity you can't claim on just any day. Just another day, unlike any other.