Seven

We celebrated RJ’s seventh birthday at home—the three of us, together, nowhere else to be.

It was the season of lockdowns, due to pandemic, when the world outside felt paused and gatherings were reduced to windows and screens. So the celebration stayed within our walls. Still, RJ found his way outward, through the virtual world of Roblox.

He drifted through block-shaped fingers, laughing with his friends in a bright virtual world where happiness felt uncomplicated and weightless.

By the end of the day, there was a cake.

Last-minute. Real. Sweet enough to mark the moment.

He was happy.

And for that day, that was everything.

I imagine we’ll return to this birthday years from now, remembering how it didn’t look the way birthdays usually do, yet somehow became its own quiet marker in time.

“Do you feel any difference,” I asked him, “now that you’re seven?”

“You’re the third person who’s asked me that today,” he said.

“And the answer is no.”

Then he looked away.

I didn’t think so either.

Happy birthday, RJ.

You’ll grow into many worlds: some virtual, some real.

This one, for now, is ours to remember.