Happy Birthday—Why Not?
I have a brother, nine years younger than I am, who can never remember his sibling’s birthdays. Should we feel insulted? Or should we just keep reminding him each year that he once again didn’t acknowledge us? Or—might that be the point?
I have a problem with math. Like, I really don’t know how old my children are. However, I do remember the dates and days they were born. My oldest was born on a Thursday. You truly do forget labor pains—when you reach menopause and there’s no chance you’ll ever have to go through giving birth again.
I felt as if I was in labor forever with the first one and indeed, I was. My husband, Mr. He-man but never brave enough to enter the delivery room, stood, watching me grimace, while he pontificated: “The Bible says, in pain thou shalt bear children.” Insert your own reply here. I shall keep my explicit retort to myself.
Why did I let that man touch me again, you might wonder? But eighteen months later I gave birth to a daughter. Both she and my younger son were born on a Sunday. Amazingly enough, I know the exact minute they were born. However, their age still remains a mystery. Unless I have pencil and paper at hand, I simply can’t figure it out.
My sister and I still exchange birthday gifts, as a way of acknowledging our natal days. Neither of us has ever liked what the other has given her. Let me state my case: Ellen has never met a craft fair she didn’t like. Ellen has never been to a craft fair where she hasn’t bought a “craft.” Ellen has never let a birthday pass where she didn’t give me some craft she bought. Believe me when I say I couldn’t even give her gifts away.
Now, I’m a lot more considerate. My sister is a compulsive cleaner. I’m not going to say, if you use the toilet, she’ll be in there with a Clorox wipe, but you get the picture. So why was she unenthused when I sent her a pack of three scrub brushes and a cloth to wipe down her windows?
Being well-mannered, we always send one another a thank you note. It used to be an actually note, but we’ve gotten lazy and resorted first to an email and then to a text. We give one another what my sister calls the “Kushner thank you.” As in, “What the hell were you thinking?”
Gift-giving for birthdays can be troublesome, as in leading to trouble. My husband wasn’t great at giving gifts. He said it was because he never knew what I wanted. Did he ask? If I were less charitable I’d call him cheap. But how well I remember one birthday when he presented me with a three-hole punch. It made my day in ways you cannot even dream of.
Everyone says at a certain age you just want to forget your birthday. But what if you never knew when it was in the first place? Both my mother’s and father’s birthdays were in May. Until they weren’t. For some reason that I cannot recall, my father needed his birth certificate. All of a sudden he was an April baby. In my grandmother’s defense, she did have six kids. Perhaps it’s from her that I get my dyscalculia. Although she also couldn’t read or write, so maybe that became a problem when remembering birth dates.
I like remembering my friends’ birthdays. Two of them I’ve known since we were eighteen years old and in college together. Who can believe the seasons we’ve shared, our careers, our marriages, the births of our children, our heartaches—our old age— But what lives we’ve lived, like a novel unwinding, with more chapters to come—let’s hope.
Birthday celebrations are much easier now than they used to be. Always, it was off to the stationery store to get just the right card. Then there was the envelope and then stamps and my lousy handwriting for the addresses. Now there are so many sites that’ll send a card for you and even give a reminder of when the birthday is so you don’t forget that special someone, who might not be so special anymore, but hey he/she’s still on your calendar.
So celebrate, even if it’s only for yourself. After all, you still are a very important person, at least that one day of the year. Make the most of it.