Jessica's favorite color is green. This is because when she was a little girl all the other children liked blue and red, and she felt sorry for green.

I often tell people that story when we meet them, or make her tell it. I know that sometimes she thinks I'm doing it to embarrass her, but she couldn't be more wrong. I love the story of how green became her favorite color because I think it says so, so much about her as a person. Even then, she was defined by her compassion.

This is a special girl.

When Jessica was in high school, she was a spectacular runner, and she had dreams of participating in the Olympics. Her coach had trained Olympic athletes in the past, and as she won race after race, it seemed as if her dream might come to pass. She was absolutely gutted when she developed asthma, all the more so when her coach reacted by being totally and completely unsupportive. Unable to battle both his passive-agressive hostility and the suffocating betrayal of her own lungs, she walked away. It had been her dream, but she had to walk away.

That's not the important part. The important part is what happened next.

Jessica turned her energies elsewhere: she joined the Special Olympics as a track and field coach. For the next three years, she spent every summer working with children between the ages of 7 and 18. The Special Olympics committee does not mince words when it talks about what coaches mean to the athletes they train. Coaches are role models and character builders, it says. Coaches give Special Olympics athletes the most immediate awareness of their own worth, ability, courage and capacity to grow and improve.

Working with the Special Olympics, Jessica came to realize that what she most wanted out of life was to help other people.

She volunteered at a crisis hotline, counseling people at the end of their rope. She oversaw after-school classes in West Philadelphia that taught entrepreneurial skills and computer literacy to the people that needed them the most. She worked for over three years at the American Red Cross.

On November 7, 2002, I met the most compassionate, loving, selfless girl I have ever known. She taught me how to dream again.

Jessica, I love you. I love that you will always buy the stuffed animal that has fallen on the floor and been stepped on. I love that you make me pull over when you see a stray dog, so that we can make sure he's ok. I love that you are capable of worrying that you're mean and selfish one second, and then literally moments later talk about working for the Special Olympics again when we get home. I love that you want to change the world, and that you believe you can, that you know you can.

Twenty-eight years ago today, an angel came into our world.

Happy birthday, my love.