I got a visit from some sweet ladies in my neighborhood today, wishing me a happy birthday. "Oh yeah!!!" I thought...standing there in my pajamas at 11:30 in the morning, with dishpan hands and my knotty hair in a bun, "I should be celebrating!" I was celebrating, I suppose, by locating my house under the piles of yuck and clods of ew. Ta-daaaa! It's a house again! (I was starting to think it might never be recognizable as a house again.)
So, my post for today is about my happiest birthday. (Well, the first one I think of due to it's recentness anyway, so no offense intended to my family who surely put in lots of effort every year around this time.)
Last year, I said good-bye to some very good friends in July. These were people I saw on a daily basis. We homeschooled our kids together, as kind of a co-op, but it was more than that. We did EVERYTHING together. And then they moved. My heart was broken into smithereens, and I wondered how I would survive. (I have though...see? It's been over a year already.)
On my birthday last year, a ginormous RV (named Rudy), rolled in, filled with Birthday wishers, a whole family of them. I know they weren't here JUST for me, but they sure made me feel like they were. And boy, was it ever good to see them.
We spent the day doing fun things like going to a craft show, where we ate a brownie for lunch. That's birthday fare for sure!
They showered me with gifts: my littlest friend, age 4 at the time, gave me some beautiful artwork and a gorgeous rose ring. It lives in a place of honor, on my computer desk, even now. I treasure it very much. And another one of the children, my son's best friend, created some custom Aluminum Foil men for me, which I also treasure. One is a bicycle rider, and the other is a bowman. Both are wonderful miniatures, and they adorn my dining room in all of their silvery glory. He also gave me a geode that he found, which I absolutely love. It meant so much that he thought to share such a rare treasure with me! There were more thoughtful gifts, I won't list them all, because that is not my focus, although they helped me to feel the true spirit of the moment.
What was that spirit? A celebration of the day I came to be. What a sacred celebration indeed. As human beings, we don't often celebrate ourselves. But we should. We are sons and daughters of the most divine Being. We are destined to be like Him. He is the giver of birthdays!
Our days are so filled up with mundane tasks...we pay bills, we run errands, we work our bums off to survive, but we very rarely celebrate life. We live it, but we don't celebrate it. That is silly. We should celebrate the sun rising, and the buds on the trees in Spring, and the leaves falling to the ground in Fall. We should celebrate our autonomic nervous system, that allows us to breathe without thought. We should celebrate grass between our toes, a wonderful book, a masterpiece of any kind.
I celebrate chocolate regularly, but really......
My friends made an effort to make my birthday special last year. Down to the last second of the day, when we shared dinner and laughed until our bellies cramped up. I can't even express how much love I felt. It wasn't the stuff they gave me, it was that they put the effort into thinking about what might make me feel special. And, I guess, even though it wasn't about the stuff...every time I bake bread in my Amish Bread Pans, or slice a tomato with my cool silver knife, I remember my friends, and all of our cherished memories.
Thank you, friends, for celebrating me. I miss you.
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