Birthdays

Today, I turn 45 years old. I feel so grateful for this day, and for all of the days that have preceded it. I know what a gift it is to get a chance to celebrate birthdays, to grow older each year, surrounded by love. AND my birthday is a complicated thing for me. 

I have always loved birthdays. Whether it be my own or someone else’s, I have always loved the idea of a singular day dedicated to celebrating a person’s life – all that has been lived, all that is yet to come. As a child, the youngest of six children, my birthday meant a day that was all about me. A day when the hectic activity of a large household momentarily paused, when all of the moving pieces – the working parents, the siblings going to sports practice or school dances or after school jobs – stopped for a moment and slowly revolved around me. One of my favorite pictures in my baby book is of my first birthday party. I’m seated in my wooden highchair, my thick hair pulled to the side with a bright pink bow, surrounded by my sisters and brother. Every one of them has their eyes on me in the photo as I smile widely into the camera. Even at only one year old, I am absolutely beaming in the glow of their attention and affection. I have so many fond memories of birthdays throughout my childhood, of celebrations at Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlor and Cap’n Andy’s, of homemade birthday cakes, of surprise parties to celebrate milestones like my 13th and 16th birthdays. Those memories speak to the love I felt surrounding me, the magic of a day that was all my own.

Even now, when my daughters’ birthdays approach, I look for ways to make sure their special days feel magical, all about them. I want them to feel like I did as a little girl: like for one day everything else is suspended, revolving around them. They pick the food we eat that day, the activities we do, the shows we watch. When they were babies and toddlers, I’d host big parties at our house with themed decorations and homemade cupcakes. As they’ve gotten a little older, they’ve chosen celebrations that better fit their own unique personalities. Whatever it is, I try to make them feel surrounded with love and attention. I want to see them glow like I did on my first birthday. 

But my own birthdays have gotten a little trickier over the last two decades.

My 24th birthday was one of the very best celebrations I’d experienced. It capped off a year of living on my own in the beautiful, magical city of Prague in the Czech Republic. I’d spent the last year teaching English as a foreign language to adults and reveling in the freedom and independence I’d discovered as a young adult living far from home for the first time. I’d made friends that felt like family, and I was discovering who I really was, the person I knew I could be. The night of my birthday was spent celebrating with a large group of my students and my friends in a pub we’d taken over in the shadow of Prague castle. I remember feeling the happiest I’d ever felt that night – aglow with joy and abundance and promise. What I didn’t know was that in those very hours that my friends and I were winding down our celebration in Prague, my sister, Cathy, was calling 911 from her apartment back in California, struggling to breathe. She was admitted unexpectedly to the hospital on the night of my 24th birthday and would die, tragically, three days later. Her death and my birthday will forever be joined days for me.

Ever since that 24th birthday celebration, this day has felt bittersweet. I still feel the sweet joy of celebrating another year of life, another year surrounded by the love of friends and family both near and far. I still feel a deep sense of gratitude for all of the life I have lived; still feel a bit giddy at the promise of all that is yet to come. AND I also feel the sting of that birthday 21 years ago, when I lost my sister, when the rug was pulled out from under me and my family and everything we knew was altered forever. My birthday now also serves as a reminder of how precious life really is, of how nothing should be taken for granted. While I spend most of the year ensconced safely in the vast landscape that is this life I’ve built – my marriage and my girls, my home and my work, my friends and my family, my community – my birthday tends to nudge me back towards the sharper edges of my grief. It is a day of joy, to be sure, AND it is also a day of grief – a day that will never not be inextricably linked to the darkest moment I’ve experienced so far. Like I said, it’s complicated. 

If you’ve stayed with me and read this far, thank you. Thank you for thinking of me today and for thinking of my sister. Thank you for giving me space for both my joy and my grief, forever companions, side by side throughout this journey.