The Birthday

Andrew shares birthday wishes for an estranged son

On an afternoon in April, the four of us sang an off-key rendition of Happy Birthday to Hiroshi. But we sang it to a screen version of ourselves. We filmed ourselves on my iPhone because we haven’t seen Roshi’s actual smiling face since August.

As we finished, Zade, my seven-year-old, snatched the phone and raced to deliver his own coda.

“I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I hope you have a great birthday, I hope you have a great birthday, good bye! Mwah! Mwah! I hope you have a great birthday!”

There were no periods in his exuberance, just commas and exclamation marks.

* * *

Where do you start a story?

Sometimes you start at the beginning.

But is that the day in 2017 when Erica and I met Rana and Hiroshi at their foster home near Fall City or is it the Halloween date inscribed on their adoption decree, the date a judge pronounced them our daughter and son? Maybe it was decades earlier, when teenage Erica imagined her parents’ wood-paneled van tricked out with two biological kiddos and two adopted kiddos of her own. Or perhaps it begins on a Sunday afternoon at Sixty Acres, the giant complex of mud puddles and sports fields where our teenagers’ biological father and I likely faced each other on U15 soccer soccer teams when we were kids.

But what if I don’t know the beginning?

What if the story begins in a Tokyo bar, an American GI, their father, throwing back drinks with a local girl, her bright nails playing lightly on his wrist? What if it begins with that man’s mother—our kids’ biological grandmother—and some quiet trauma that rippled out through generations in ways that only God knows?

Perhaps, then, we should begin at the end.

But how do you find an ending to a true story in which all of the characters still draw breath, still live on to complicate and sully an easy narratives? How do you find an ending when you map a story on a timeline and the last thing you can recall is silence?

Is the ending that November night Rana left our house after an argument about when to make pasta? Is it that week in August when Rana and Hiroshi finally moved their belongings out of our home and lingered to chat, as if filling their cup with final good memories before, perhaps, exiting our lives forever?

* * *

A story, it seems, can begin anywhere.

I can take my time, hovering Godlike over the story, rummaging through the events, trying to find the sequence that makes straight something twisted and complex.

So today, I started the story with Zade. I thought he could be our narrative compass, our true north.

Zade is one of the only characters in this story who speaks straightforward emotional truth. You don’t have to squeeze emotional language from him or parse his poetry for the bias of an adoptive father. And I don’t have to wonder what he thinks or feels, to guess at the possible meanings of his actions or inaction. I can show you Zade’s feeling and longing by hitting record on my phone and then playing something back in his words.

The simple translation of Zade’s birthday message is this: For the first five-and-a-half years of his life, Zade had a brother and sister, and then, one day, they were gone. We told him that his brother and sister missed their birth family, and we don’t actually know much more about their motives than that. He loves and misses them and occasionally sends them emojis and short declarations of love.

They rarely reply. And everything else is a mystery.

So what does it mean when your teenager has not spoken to you in eight months? Can you still call him son if he won’t respond to a text or answer the phone?

Can you really believe the reports that his mood is good when you hear that he rarely hangs with friends and doesn’t attend school?

And what about that birthday video with all the love and kisses? Did Hiroshi watch that? Or what about the texts I sent him that week? Or did he read the birthday message from my wife that made me cry?

* * *

A selfie Hiroshi and I took on one of my favorite nights from our 2023 trip to DC. I’ve purposefully messed with the photo to make it harder to identify him. But there’s still that spark in his eye.

I hope that love has a way of filling the silence. I hope that Hiroshi has seen our messages, taken them to mean what we intend, and planted them somewhere in his heart so they might one day bloom, and he might know he is loved. I hope he sees his own goodness and feels mastery over his past.

In my most reckless moments, I hope that this chapter will end and that something new will be born. I can’t dare to think of what that might be, but I imagine surprise and joy. I imagine passing in a park or sidewalk, doing a double-take, and then one of us taking an extra three steps to tackle the other in a ferocity of love and acceptance and reconnection. A guy can dream, right?

But in the meantime, if Roshi can’t hear us, I want someone to know.

I want you to know that there was once a family of Andrew, Erica, Rana, Hiroshi, Zade, and Corrigan, and we were amazing. We ate dinner together every night. We snuggled on the couch and adventured around the world. We laughed and did long good nights. We sometimes argued about things like cellphones and schoolwork and debit card accounts, but we loved through it all.

I want you to know that we miss Hiroshi and Rana. That Zade still calls them brother and sister. I want you to know that Roshi is a special kid, that he will be a thoughtful and hilarious man.

And if he can’t read Erica’s birthday message, I hope you will.

* * *

Hi, Hiroshi.

I think it was Rana’s seventeenth birthday when I gave her cards each day with words of traits I saw in her. And here you are, seventeen today. So, here are traits I have seen in you over the years:

Observant. You see people and you notice details, which I think leads you to the second trait.

Caring. Of all my kids, I can think of the most times when you did something specific to help or to show you saw what needed to be done or that I could use cheering up.

Clever. Good gracious, your mind is wildly brilliant. From puns to puzzles, you see two steps ahead and lay the groundwork to get there.

Determination. Along with those smarts, when you put your mind to something, it’s awesome to see you keep at it until you have conquered it. I knew that I could get the most challenging game cube (we could afford ) and you would tackle it. Or be in the top scorers in Fortnite. Or give me a run for my money in Mastermind.

Loyal. From The Flash to your mice to your sister. Once you give your commitment, you’re all in and you go above and beyond.

Good to others. I really admire this one. I appreciate that I can’t think of a single time where you talked badly about another kid. Sure, you might chuckle at their quirks good-naturedly, but you respect their humanness. We need a lot more of that in the world.

Fun. I might have also said adventurous. I love your playfulness and the way these other traits contribute to your humor and joy at engaging with others.

I hope this year is one where you get to live into the parts of you that you enjoy, that make your brain or your heart zing with curiosity or satisfaction.

I imagine that it might feel like there are barriers between us, but please know that we (and I) are always a text away if you want to grab a bite to eat or just come hang with the boys or whatever. I love you like the robot loves Will Robinson.

Happy birthday!