Happy Fiftieth Birthday, Dad!

Today was my dad’s fiftieth birthday.  The day turned out to be remarkably busy, so I will only mention my favourite moment: present opening.

For as long as I can remember, Dad has told me stories.  Often they were stories of his own past or stories of someone he knows.  However, the stories he told the most were those he had read or made up himself.  My favourite one to hear was that of Bilbo Baggins and his adventures with the dwarves and the wizard, Gandalf; this was Dad’s re-telling of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit (and sometimes The Lord of the Rings).  From the time I was two and a half years old until the ago of ten, Dad and I used to take walks around our mountain to a place we named The Valley of the Rabbits because the adorable little creatures were everywhere we looked.  I was so enamoured by the stories of Middle-Earth that I named a large rabbit ‘Bilbo Baggins’ on one of our first walks, and I still can visit his hole until this day; though I have obviously not seen him in a very long time.  When I knew that Dad’s fiftieth birthday was approaching, I tried to think of something that would mean a lot to him.  I already own The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings so there would be no point in buying him those, yet I remembered that decades ago he read Tolkien’s collection of tales that further the mythology of Middle-Earth, The Silmarillion.  So, I spent a while hunting the book down and found a beautiful hardcover edition with even more content than the original book and fifty (I found the number fitting) glorious illustrations.  He was very touched when he opened the wrapping and saw the book.  Then his emotion turned to excitement to read it.  I love my dad.