Dear Amy,

I heard you turned 100. Happy Birthday! I hope there wasn’t a fire when they lit the candles on the cake. Couldn’t resist sarcasm, but you know that about us. Anyway, I just want to say thanks for everything. I’m sorry about the neck. I tried to tell teenage Amy about this, but she didn’t really listen. She carried that heavy bookbag on her right shoulder for 12 years… I was trying to make her see reason, but she wouldn’t have any of that. You know teenagers. I should apologize for the neck as well. I spent hours with my head down, looking at my phone, using poor posture in front of the laptop, and generally not taking the advice that I gave to teenage Amy. I guess I never learned. I hope that you are a “good” 100. By that I mean I hope you’re still active and enjoying things. I hope you are of sound mind. It would dishearten me to learn otherwise. Please tell me you’re still wearing fedoras and dressing like you want. I hope you have a really cool scooter and that it goes 60 mph. I hope you start foodfights in the cafeteria of the assisted living home. I hope they have really good chocolate milk there. I hope there are no weird men. Ha, who am I kidding?

Thank you for all the years, and I hope that all of the versions of us have made you proud. We’ve done the best we could, haven’t we? We protected little girl Amy with all that we had. We did some bad, we did some good, we loved hard, we laughed hard, we worked hard, sometimes we cried hard, and most of all we lived. We really lived.

I see that lady from Room 3A eyeing the pink wheels on your scooter. You’d better get over there. It looks like she’s messing with your music selection. You let her know that no one changes the song but you.

Love,

Amy

100-year-old Amy gets on her scooter and turns up the volume. She tells the lady from 3A to move, she’s got stuff to do. She peels out, heading off to parts unknown, her speakers blaring “I’m Bad” by LL Cool J.

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