{"id":203712,"date":"2019-06-05T11:08:37","date_gmt":"2019-06-05T16:08:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=203712"},"modified":"2019-06-04T22:36:42","modified_gmt":"2019-06-05T03:36:42","slug":"daughter-50th-birthday-tribute-dad-down-syndrome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/daughter-50th-birthday-tribute-dad-down-syndrome\/","title":{"rendered":"Daughter pens moving 50th birthday tribute to dad with Down syndrome"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Richie Anne Castillo found a unique way of marking her father’s 50th<\/sup> birthday with a moving message<\/a> on social media. Castillo\u2019s father, Richard Castillo, celebrated his birthday on Sunday. As Castillo writes, he was not expected to live this long because her dad has Down syndrome.<\/p>\n

Her message, which has gone viral, begins:<\/p>\n

Dear Dad. Today marks a very special and very miraculous moment of your life. You turn 50 today and I am so blessed that you continue to live such a long and beautiful life. Doctors are still amazed by it! I know you won\u2019t be able to read this because I don\u2019t know if you have Facebook, but I want the whole world to know how proud I am that you are my dad. I want the whole world to know how beautiful you are inside and out.<\/em><\/p>\n

In the post<\/a>, Castillo, 23, explains that fear of being bullied has stopped her from sharing about her father openly and overcoming that fear prompted her to write the beautiful message. Her post has been like almost 200,000 times and shared more than 60,000 times at this writing.<\/p>\n