One beautiful birthday after another
John Lennon, in “Beautiful Boy,” sings “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” I have thought of that these last few weeks as February gave way to March, my work felt all-consuming, and my two youngest beautiful girls had their birthdays. Stella Jane turned 11 on Feb. 26. Adelaide was 16 March 2.
All birthdays feel big to this mother. And I never have excelled at doing things small. So, I can’t say for sure I would have done anything differently even had I not racked up loads of mom guilt for being gone so much back and forth to Little Rock and other places around the state meeting with teachers about LEARNS.
So I did not say no to anything my girls wanted to do for their birthdays. And as a consequence I likely will be recovering—physically and financially—until their next birthdays roll around.
Stella’s dream was to transform our camper into a birthday paradise. If you’ve seen the movie “RV” with Robin Williams, or “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation,” you get the idea. My dad calls our camper The Grizz (short for Griswold) in reference to the latter movie; Cousin Eddie’s motor home has nothing on it.
With enough balloons, streamers, banners, candy, cake, punch, glitter crowns, blowout whistles, and spa materials, the mission was accomplished. Seven fifth-grade girls made mischief of one kind and another in The Grizz till about 1 a.m., at which time I was dispatched to their nearby location for collection. It would seem distant coyotes, strange scents, and overactive imaginations forced them out of birthday paradise and into our living room, where they set up camp for a few winks of sleep.
Adelaide wanted the entire attic transformed a week later. A pink backdrop with helium balloons was created for pictures, because TikTok. TikTok is where we get most of our festive ideas these days, as well as where they are posted after execution, along with Instagram, Snapchat, and Be Real.
Twinkle lights were strung. Streamers, banners, sparklers, and more balloons. Candles. A white sheet and projector for movies. A red retro minifridge—borrowed from my office—stocked with soft drinks, and serious amounts of sour gummy candy.
Several teenage girls gathered at our house to celebrate Adelaide before going to the state semi-final basketball game. It was played (and won!) by our County Line High School neighbors, hosted at the Ozark Hillbilly Activities Center. I got to hear about it when the girls all piled onto my bed afterward. They were lively and luminous, and I felt lucky. I was also not sad when they took their remaining energy upstairs.
I used to use the word “blessed” instead of “lucky,” and as a believer, “lucky” really doesn’t cut it because I don’t believe things just happen; I trust there is a design. But “blessed” doesn’t work either because of what I see it convey so often in our culture: an implication that I am blessed as though somehow favored by God in ways others are not. I cannot say that because I do not believe it. I believe God loves us all equally; is no respecter of persons, makes the sun to rise on the evil and the good; and frankly, that we are all both evil and good to varying degrees.
I do not understand why at this moment I have the distinct honor of celebrating my daughters’ birthdays with them healthy, happy, and near. Plenty of mothers are not this lucky or blessed or whatever. I do not presume this is because of anything either of us did or did not do, necessarily. It just is.
Adelaide’s cake, like Stella’s, was ordered from our local bakery. Unlike Stella’s, when we picked it up, there was no charge. Instead there was a handwritten note, signed by a stranger, that said: “Hope you enjoy your special day! I wanted to buy your cake in memory of my daughter. She would have been 28 today.”
While this was an unspeakably kind act that touched my family, and particularly my heart after a grueling week at the Legislature, I cannot get that mother off my mind. I feel a pang of guilt that I think is really, mostly, just sorrow for her pain.
It does not serve her for me to feel guilty that I can hold my daughters, brush their hair, and hear their stories. In fact, it honors her and the memory of her daughter if I am fully present for these things. If I appreciate the gift of another birthday. And if I learn from her the valuable lesson that blessing others is a choice I can make—a beautiful thing to do with my own losses, whenever and whatever they may be.