Birthdays

I've never really given birthdays a whole lot of thought. I mean, I've planned parties or made gifts for them, and I do know they tend to come around once a year. But I am not the kind of person to make a big, hairy deal about getting my way just because it is the day I was born. I like to have birthday get-togethers that focus more on my friends and relationships than on me.

So I was thinking, what does it really mean to celebrate a birthday? Here are some of the things I came up with:
~Celebrate your achievements, accomplishments or growth from the preceding year.
~Celebrate the opportunities of the year to come.
~Celebrate the relationships that you have built or maintained since last year.
~Gather loved ones close to you so you can be physically reminded of how they bless your life.

I realized that in coming up with this list, I was thinking mainly about what it means to me to celebrate my birthday. This lead me to think about how I celebrate another persons birthday:
~Do something to let then know you care (cards, gifts, visiting, calling).

Well, what do you do to celebrate a birthday when they have passed away? I was faced with this question twice this month. Well, really three times if you consider Jen's son should have been born on the 2nd: I already had the blocks cut out for the baby quilt which would have been the first of several that I would have made for him.

I thought about Jen a lot on her birthday. I remembered all the things we used to do together and all the birthdays that we celebrated, cards we sent, long phone conversations and later emails and instant messages. I called her parents, since I couldn't talk to her anymore, and I know they were probably having a lot of the same thoughts. Of course, being that we were the same age, it also made me think about my own mortality. Oddly, this is not something that usually occurs to me at my own birthday.

Wednesday was another tough day: Mom's birthday. She would have been 56 years old. Thankfully I was very busy most of the day at work, so I didn't have time to dwell too much on thoughts of missing her. Dad and Joy came up and we had dinner at my house. It was nice that none of us were alone and we could share stories about Mom. I was holding up okay until Dad started to sing "Happy Birthday."

It's hard to describe the difference between singing "Happy Birthday" about someone instead of to them. I realized that celebrating Mom's birthday is really a celebration of her life, and in turn my own. The best gift that she gave me was life, and the best gift I can continue to give her is to live it to the fullest. Sometimes that means bearing the sorrow of losing her and singing "Happy Birthday" through tears. And sometimes it will mean leaving the sorrow behind to rejoice. But it will always mean honoring her memory and legacy.