The Lioness Roars

For her birthday she received phone calls and emails from faraway friends, and from her family. She was embraced by her husband, by the Korean grocer, the women at the beauty salon, and by a stranger on 23rd Street. She ate steak and salad and drank champagne late into the night on an 80-foot sailboat while quietly cruising the river past the Manhattan skyline. She is loved and satisfied and she gives thanks.