Birthday Celebration
My Mother Did The Work!
I love birthdays, mine, and making much-a-do about others. On one hand, everyday is another birth day. Still, I love the annual day.
My mother always made a lot out of our birthdays. Somewhere along the way I decided to be sure to continue this for myself, no matter who or what else goes on.
This morning on my birthday, I’m up, making quiches, homemade hummus for going out later. I bought things I wanted yesterday at the store. It’s really not about what others do for me. I want special friends around me, and will seek to celebrate them along with everything else that happens. Friends are part of my family. I don’t take them for granted. I love them hugely, and want them to know it!
Someone asked me why I’m choosing to be up and working on my birthday. It’s this:
My mother did the work! Did she ever!
My mother had lost five babies, stillborn and miscarriages. Can you imagine the anguish? She adopted my sister, thinking she was done trying to give birth. Forgetting her diaphragm one weekend at the Kentucky Derby, along I came! (I told her that’s what she got for horsing around!)
I’m sure she took a lot of heat for getting pregnant again. My father was a violent alcoholic, none too kind most of the time.
At six months and a week, she went into labor, unable to carry a baby full term. I was to be a cesarean. They were afraid any anesthesia or anything for pain would kill the baby, so they chose to cut her open with nothing to numb her. Fully conscious, she endured that knife! She remembered them waiting until they heard me first cry before knocking her out.
I was 16 inches long, with hair and fingernails, weighing 2 pounds, 5 ounces, with a hematoma on my back. Put into an incubator, I was given one in a thousand chances of living twelve hours. It was a box where they reached in with gloves on. No skin contact. It was only the nurses and doctors. My mother was unable to touch me until I came home 2-102 months later. She used to tell me she came every day to the hospital and made sure I could hear her voice.
When I actually did go home, my mother said I would not eat. My father was ranting, and my four-year old sister had to deal with all of this change. They didn’t know for another month or so that I was blind.
I can only imagine my mother back then, having to figure out how to raise a blind child, especially in the midst of dealing with her difficult husband.
So, though our relationship was extremely challenging for us both, today, I embrace and solute my mother! I speak with her all the time, as she lived in the Spirit world. I understand tons of things now, from her perspective, and I trust that she equally sees what life was like for me. For me, nothing is about right or wrong, who was at fault for this or that. Even the fact that she chose to be with my father…, love is blind as they say. My father also came from a very difficult background. That is probably more of the norm for most of us. When someone says they grew up in the perfect family I quietly wonder if that is true, or if they will experience pain later on for which they were unprepared.
My mother used to tell everyone to take the month to celebrate their birthday. She would tell her friends that she was taking the month, so there were all sorts of times of going out to lunch, gift giving. She just said she was still celebrating. And it was the month from the day. So if someone had a birthday on the last day of the month, she would say to take the month from that day. Meanwhile as a child I was told that people get to do what they want on their birthday, so I decided that meant saying no to anything I didn’t want to do. I remember washing a china tea set I had gotten for my birthday when I was ten, and someone added an ashtray to the sink. I whimsically said that it was my birthday, and I wasn’t washing the ashtray because I didn’t have to. I think I did anyway, but today, when I tell people about what my mother said, to take the month, I add, and if anyone wants you to do anything you don’t want to do, just tell them that no, you’re still celebrating your birthday.
So today, while I play with all of that, I seriously do what I can to enfold some of the people who mean the most, to give to them, I’m so appreciative that they’re in my life.
And I embrace age! It seems to me that age is one of the best kept secrets. Age is where and when I have found peace. Age is where I have found wisdom, resilience, flexibility. Age is where I have been in my best health, my most clarity. It’s where I have found the most doors open for possibilities on every level. I’m more able to allow intimacy. Vulnerability is not so scary. Even when it is, I choose when and where and welcome those moments. Age is where everything comes together, allowing broader vision with freedom of choices!
And it’s all possible because my mother did the work!
Thanks Mom!
I’m still cheering you on as you continue to travel on your spiritual journey. Thanks for staying so in touch with me. We’re closer than ever now. 😊 Happy birthday to me!