My daughter turns 30 today.

My daughter turns 30 today.

I have written that sentence a hundred ways this week and none of them get easier. Emily was 13 the last time I sang happy birthday to her. Sixteen birthdays have come since, and I have marked every one without her. I will say that once, plainly, and move on, because this letter is about her, and pity is the last thing she would want it to produce.

Emily noticed people. The kid eating lunch alone. The man on the sidewalk that everyone else had learned to walk past. She felt what strangers were carrying and she could not leave it alone. She wanted people to be happy, and she acted on it, at an age when most of us are still learning to see past ourselves. She understood, at 13, that being human is something we owe each other.

When she was killed on Pacific Coast Highway in 2010, Ellen and I had to decide what to do with the rest of our lives. We decided to do what Emily would have done.

The Emily Shane Foundation was built on her instinct to find the person who is struggling and stand with them. Our SEA Program has now mentored more than 1,300 middle school students across Los Angeles and Ventura Counties, one child at a time, each one asked to pass the kindness forward. That is Emily’s idea running through 1,300 lives she never got to meet.

The road, too. I have spent these years consumed by that stretch of asphalt: the columns, the hearings, our film, the speed cameras we fought into law. The fight to make Pacific Coast Highway a road that gives every family the ordinary miracle we lost. At every podium, I am standing there for her. The work is not finished, and it will not stop.

Here is what I cannot write. I cannot tell you who Emily would be at 30. Where she would live, what she would do, who she would love. All of it was taken before any of it could be known, and the not knowing is the loss I carry every day. What I can tell you is who she was, and that who she was is still at work in the world.

So today, do the thing she would do. Sit with the kid who is alone. See the person everyone walks past. Make someone happy for no reason at all.

Happy birthday, Emily. You are 30 today, and you are everywhere.

PS: The puppy in this photo is Jackson. He is 17 now, still with us, still the last one in the house she ever held., and she could not leave it alone. She wanted people to be happy, and she acted on it, at an age when most of us are still learning to see past ourselves. She understood, at 13, that being human is something we owe each other.

When she was killed on Pacific Coast Highway in 2010, Ellen and I had to decide what to do with the rest of our lives. We decided to do what Emily would have done.

The Emily Shane Foundation was built on her instinct to find the person who is struggling and stand with them. Our SEA Program has now mentored more than 1,300 middle school students across Los Angeles and Ventura Counties, one child at a time, each one asked to pass the kindness forward. That is Emily’s idea running through 1,300 lives she never got to meet.

The road, too. I have spent these years consumed by that stretch of asphalt: the columns, the hearings, our film, the speed cameras we fought into law. The fight to make Pacific Coast Highway a road that gives every family the ordinary miracle we lost. At every podium, I am standing there for her. The work is not finished, and it will not stop.

Here is what I cannot write. I cannot tell you who Emily would be at 30. Where she would live, what she would do, who she would love. All of it was taken before any of it could be known, and the not knowing is the loss I carry every day. What I can tell you is who she was, and that who she was is still at work in the world.

So today, do the thing she would do. Sit with the kid who is alone. See the person everyone walks past. Make someone happy for no reason at all.

Happy birthday, Emily. You are 30 today, and you are everywhere.

PS: The puppy in this photo is Jackson. He is 17 now, still with us, still the last one in the house she ever held.