Dear Henry

Yesterday was the anniversary of your transplant, otherwise known as your new birthday if things had turned out okay. We used to celebrate with a party and a cake. We were right to be hopeful.

I guess it was appropriate that we had a guest over for dinner last night, Jacob Grossman's mom, Rachel. Jacob has FA. He and his family live in Chicago. His mom is visiting Washington with Jacob's sister Talia. Jacob has had a really tough go of it. I think his mom told us last night that he is the only kid to have had both a bone marrow transplant and a kidney transplant. He must have 3 different birthdays then.

We gave Jacob an iPod iTouch from Hope for Henry. He is an interesting kid. He loves Barry Manilow's music. I can't think of a whole lot of 10 year olds who even know who Barry Manilow is. It was weird to read in the newspaper this morning that Barry Manilow is in Washington, DC right now.

We told Rachel that she is in Mom's book. Mom tells the story about how you got on the phone with Rachel and advised that they get a "Magic Closet" for Jacob's transplant room at Minnesota. Rachel had called looking for advice, pointers, support, whatever prior to their family going to Minneapolis for Jacob's BMT, and you insisted on talking to her when Mom was done.

Rachel told us last night that they indeed had gotten a room with a built in Magic Closet, and it constantly produced gifts for Jacob that helped him get through all those rough days in the hospital.