**!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KAY !!**

Today August 17, 2005, is my little sister's birthday! She was born on August 17, 1981. So that makes her 24 years old today.

I remember the day you were born, girl. It was a Monday morning. I remember Ma coming into my room at 5:00 a.m. and calmly saying that her water broke, and I should get up and get dressed.

Then she did something that I thought, even at the age of eleven, was the dumbest thing in the world. She went and took a bath. And then she straightened and combed her hair.

I sat there and watched the hot comb do wonders on her nappy hair. I remember the sizzle and smoke from the pressing oil and straightening comb. And I remember looking at her and thinking, "Umm, shouldn't we be getting out of here?"

We were waiting for your daddy Ronnie (my stepfather) to come home from his job as a forklift driver. He finally got in around six-thirty and started running around the house like a chicken with its head cut off...

Ma remained calm.

We got in the Thunderbird, got on I-85, heading northbound towards Crawford Long Hospital in Midtown. Ma and Ronnie forgot about one thing...

Rush hour traffic.

So somewhere near the Langford Parkway/166 exit, Ma started screaming like someone was trying to kill her or something. And I thought silently to myself...

"If only we woulda just left... You just had to go straigthen your hair and take a bath. Now you gonna have this baby in this Thunderbird. And that is just nasty." I thought such words quietly to myself. Saying them aloud would have gotten me slapped on the spot.

Ronnie drove like crazy, weaving in an out of traffic. I didn't know if Ma was screaming because she was in labor or if she was becoming like me, scared that we were going to have a wreck!

Anyway, we finally got to the hospital. You were born around 9:15 a.m. I remember calling Grandma, Auntie, and Uncle Olin and 'em on the payphone and saying that Mommie had just had a baby, a girl.

And when I saw Ma, she looked like I thought she would: like a wild woman, hair all sweated out into a lopsided afro. So much for straigthening her hair!

You stayed in the hospital for an extra week because you had the jaundice. My first sight of you was you laying there under the lights with a white blindfold on, crying and grabbing at the air. This disturbed me so bad that I went home and sat in the bathroom with Keesie (you remember our mutt Keesie, don'c cha?) and cried for awhile.

Thought I would tell you these things, because I've never told you before.

Fast-forward to almost a quarter-century later. Now you're grown, graduated from college, got a job, got a car...

Got a man... (LOL!)

A true diva of the world... Yes indeed!!

Happy 24th Birthday, Kay!!!!!

Love,
Ladylee.