•• Thank you for those who have already sent me so many beautiful birthday wishes. It’s strange to have your birthday on 9-11. I always loved having a party and celebrating my birthday but that all changed in 2001. My little boy asked why and how and all the questions so many children asked on that day. I remember telling him that more people helped and more people prayed on that day than ever before in history. The good was far more powerful than hate could ever be.

The next year, my little Jack was starting 2nd. grade. He wanted me to celebrate my birthday cause I’d missed it the year before and I told him it wasn’t really a day to have fun for my own sake. When he came home from school, he had a backpack full of birthday greetings made by all the kids in his class for “Jacks Mom”. He said “Mama, that was only one day. Today is your birthday and it should be happy. I love you.” I read each card from these little children and wept. Their innocent love touched my heart and I felt it was ok to have a birthday, honor my Mother and Father and blow out the candles.

I will always honor this day and what happened to all of us all over the world because we changed. But this many years later, even when I feel somewhat frivolous, I will always be grateful for my family who’ve taught me and loved me so well and to my beautiful son who continues to remind me to celebrate my birthday. Today I remember.

Here’s to the best year ever. I’m pretty sure it will be a year full of Joy!

V mad

•• Zach Williams, Brian Elmquist, and Kanene Pipkin, the trio of Brooklyn transplants who record soulful, sepia-toned folk-pop as The Lone Bellow—released their second acclaimed collection, Then Came the Morning, earlier this year.

The tune is an ode to Williams’ mother-in-law, and when he called EW to discuss the song and video—which stars the brilliant Virginia Madsen—the song’s story unraveled through his thoughtful anecdotes about how his mother-in-law and her sister came to be named, respectively, Edna and Fredna, and falling in love with his now-wife at 15-years-old. Here’s the tale of “Fake Roses” and its video, which is streaming below, in Williams’ own words:

“Now we only know a couple people in the movie/TV world, and one of them is this lady Sophia Bush. A few years ago I played a show at her house and Virginia Madsen was there. So when I was thinking for this video, I was like, ‘Sophia knows Virginia, I’m going to see how this goes.’ So I called her and told her that we basically didn’t have a budget but would she mind giving us three days and doing this. Immediately, she said yes.”

•• Tonight’s Lifetime movie Lost Boy is about a six-year-old boy who goes missing, then turns up eleven years later with very unexpected results. So is the movie based on a true story or is it fiction?

Although Lifetime has built quite the stable of movies based on real-life kidnappings, like Cleveland Abduction and Kidnapped: The Hannah Anderson Story, Lost Boy is not based on a true story.

Although it was inspired by one! Jennifer Maisel, who wrote the screenplay for Lost Boy, revealed in a recent interview with Newsday that she first got the idea for the script after hearing about a real life kidnapping. Jennifer says she was on a beach in California when a small child went missing. Thankfully, that child was soon found, but the spark was already there for what would eventually become Lost Boy.

Lost Boy premieres tonight at 8/7c on Lifetime. Here is the synospis of Lost Boy from Lifetime followed by the trailer:

In Lost Boy, six-year-old Mitchell Harris disappeared without a trace while spending the day at the lake with his mother (Virginia Madsen), father, and sister (Sosie Bacon). Eleven years later, Mitchell is found and brought back home – but his return leads to events that shake the family to the core once more.