A Birthday to Remember
April is my favorite month. When I opened my door to get the newspaper last Sunday, I was greeted by a humming bird, hovering over my jasmine and a squirrel, skipping across my lawn. Spring had sprung—I could feel it in the air.
April is also my birthday month. (I’m an Aries—like you needed me to tell you that!) Even though I resent how quickly the years are beginning to stack up, I still love my birthday and have no qualms whatsoever about being the center of attention for a day—or a week. My husband refuses to acknowledge his birthday. Me? Send cards, send flowers, eat cake. If not on my birthday, then when?
This month I will celebrate my 37th birthday. In my dim and distant memory I have a recollection of a book or a movie about a woman named Gillian and what happened when she turned 37. I don’t remember the details; I just recall it wasn’t much of a happy ending. Still, I’m not going to allow that to ruin a perfectly good birthday. Odds of me being diagnosed with some terrible disease between now and next week are pretty slim, especially if I avoid contact with doctors, which I fully intend to do.
Birthday are fun. Periodically my birthday falls on Easter, which, when I was young meant it was during the Easter break so I wasn’t tied to an after-school party or worse, a party held on the weekend and not on my birthday. This was especially tricky as my best friend was one day older than me so our birthday parties sometimes coincided. I’ve had sunny birthdays and birthdays with snow. I’ve even had a birthday when I was too sick and to go out for pizza with my friend. This year I plan to have a good birthday, spent with a good husband and good friends.
My eighth birthday was a good birthday. Even though my friend from America, Michelle refused to eat anything and Jane Eaton won all the games and took all the prizes, we had beanies and weenies to eat and my Mum found a cake shaped like Dougal, my favorite character from my favorite cartoon, Magic Roundabout. My brother, 13 years my senior and so barely involved in my life, arrived home from work just as my party was coming to a close. Back then, he was renowned for his cheapness, especially with his annoying kid sister. Note the time I washed his car and he refused to pay me even 50 pence (about a dollar) until my Dad badgered him into it. But this birthday, he brought me a gift. Not just any gift. He gave me The Complete Adventures of Paddington Bear, illustrated and in hardback.
It had all the stories, beginning with the Browns finding Paddington at the train station illustrated with thick glossy inserts of hand-drawn pencil sketches of the bear from Darkest Peru up to his antics. It was a beautiful book. It still sits on the bookcase in my living room here. One day I’ll read it to my children, but it will have to be handled with the greatest of care. It was a small gesture by my brother, but it has stuck with me for almost 30 years. It wasn’t the only gift he ever gave me, but it’s the one that stands out the most.
I don’t know if he realizes how much that book meant to me. He has five children of his own now, so he’s far too busy to read this blog and find out. He’ll turn 50 this year. It will be the perfect opportunity to send the rudest, most insulting card possible to poke fun at him. Our middle brother will have begun his quest already and it would be un-sisterly of me to let the opportunity pass. But I’d like to give him something that would mean as much to him as his gift did to me. He’s 6,000 miles away now so I see him for one or two days each year. I couldn’t begin to guess what such a gift might be.
April is also my birthday month. (I’m an Aries—like you needed me to tell you that!) Even though I resent how quickly the years are beginning to stack up, I still love my birthday and have no qualms whatsoever about being the center of attention for a day—or a week. My husband refuses to acknowledge his birthday. Me? Send cards, send flowers, eat cake. If not on my birthday, then when?
This month I will celebrate my 37th birthday. In my dim and distant memory I have a recollection of a book or a movie about a woman named Gillian and what happened when she turned 37. I don’t remember the details; I just recall it wasn’t much of a happy ending. Still, I’m not going to allow that to ruin a perfectly good birthday. Odds of me being diagnosed with some terrible disease between now and next week are pretty slim, especially if I avoid contact with doctors, which I fully intend to do.
Birthday are fun. Periodically my birthday falls on Easter, which, when I was young meant it was during the Easter break so I wasn’t tied to an after-school party or worse, a party held on the weekend and not on my birthday. This was especially tricky as my best friend was one day older than me so our birthday parties sometimes coincided. I’ve had sunny birthdays and birthdays with snow. I’ve even had a birthday when I was too sick and to go out for pizza with my friend. This year I plan to have a good birthday, spent with a good husband and good friends.
My eighth birthday was a good birthday. Even though my friend from America, Michelle refused to eat anything and Jane Eaton won all the games and took all the prizes, we had beanies and weenies to eat and my Mum found a cake shaped like Dougal, my favorite character from my favorite cartoon, Magic Roundabout. My brother, 13 years my senior and so barely involved in my life, arrived home from work just as my party was coming to a close. Back then, he was renowned for his cheapness, especially with his annoying kid sister. Note the time I washed his car and he refused to pay me even 50 pence (about a dollar) until my Dad badgered him into it. But this birthday, he brought me a gift. Not just any gift. He gave me The Complete Adventures of Paddington Bear, illustrated and in hardback.
It had all the stories, beginning with the Browns finding Paddington at the train station illustrated with thick glossy inserts of hand-drawn pencil sketches of the bear from Darkest Peru up to his antics. It was a beautiful book. It still sits on the bookcase in my living room here. One day I’ll read it to my children, but it will have to be handled with the greatest of care. It was a small gesture by my brother, but it has stuck with me for almost 30 years. It wasn’t the only gift he ever gave me, but it’s the one that stands out the most.
I don’t know if he realizes how much that book meant to me. He has five children of his own now, so he’s far too busy to read this blog and find out. He’ll turn 50 this year. It will be the perfect opportunity to send the rudest, most insulting card possible to poke fun at him. Our middle brother will have begun his quest already and it would be un-sisterly of me to let the opportunity pass. But I’d like to give him something that would mean as much to him as his gift did to me. He’s 6,000 miles away now so I see him for one or two days each year. I couldn’t begin to guess what such a gift might be.
posted by Lisa at 11:45 AM
2 Comments:
lisa, i wish you the best birthday in the world!! and i'm amazed at how relaxed you are. i'm already so anxious about hitting 30 in july and how little i've done with my life. (at least compared to what my goals are.)but reading this made me realize how much time i've got left and that it's all a matter of perception. but when i was a kid, i hated my birthdays too, except for the gifts of course. but being a shy and insecure cancer got me always in a frenzy about being the center of attention. i was also easily afraid of those (aries?)kids that would bully everybody else around... ;)
Antonia--We Aries' aren't really bullies, we're just a little bossy, but you Cancers can never make up your minds, so really you should be glad to have us keeping you in line. ;-)
And don't worry too much about about 30. That's the age you realize you've finally lived long enough to figure out what's going on. It's 35 youwant to worry about--that's when things start falling about. So you have 5 good years in you yet!
Jose--Thanks for the compliment but I was hoping you'd come up with a gift idea. :-)
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