When I was 16 my mother threw me a surprise bday party!
I can remember growing up, every year the day before my birthday, my dad would say, “you know what? You and I have something in common.” He would pause so I would ask what it was. Like we didn’t have anything in common. We probably had more in common than we didn’t. Anyway, he would wait for me to ask and then he would say “after today, you and I will never be (insert current age here) again.” So, if I was going to be twelve, he would say “you and I will never be eleven years old again”. I would always say good, I was sick of being 11 anyway. I can remember not being able to wait to be another year older. I always wanted to be older than I was. Daddy would always tell me to quit wishing my life away. “One day you’re going to want to be 11 years old again.” I assured him I wouldn’t.
Today is the last day that I’ll ever be 58 years old. I will never see 58 again. I won’t be able to tell people that I was born in 1958 so that makes me 58 years old. And I’m glad. I’m glad to move onto the 30th Anniversary of my 29th birthday. I know this sounds really weird but I cannot wait to turn 60. In fact, I thought I would tell people that I’ll be 60 this year but then decided that I would probably get confused and forget how old I really am. So, I will tell you in a couple of hours I will be 59 years old. Wow. I never thought I would live to see it. But I hope that I am around to see 60 and 70 and 80 and maybe 90 but I think I’ll be too tired to live longer than that. Ha!
Look how handsome my daddy was
Mom could throw a really good birthday party
Look at how cute I was
But what I’m reminiscing about is that I can’t say to Daddy, just think, you and I will never be 58 years old again. Because it’s been a long time since I’ve been able to say that to Daddy. You see, he died when he was 41 years old. So, for the last 17 years I have not been able to tell him that we have something in common. For the last 17 years I have beaten him because I have outlived him, by a lot. That is something I never thought I would do. Daddy was diabetic, back when diabetics didn’t test their blood to see if they needed insulin. He just took insulin, whether he needed it or not. And one thing that insulin does is damage the kidneys. So all of that extra insulin in his body that he probably did not need caused his kidneys to fail. He had a kidney transplant but that was back when they first started doing them and the diabetes would not let the kidney heal to his body. So the kidney never failed, his body just would not heal from the wound and the kidney kept leaking. They took it out on a Friday and he died on Sunday. This year will be the 40th anniversary of his death. I was 19 when he died.
I’m not sorry that Daddy didn’t live to be an old man. I mean, I am, for me. But I am happy for him. I know that he is at peace. I know this because he has my mother with him and that’s all he could ever want. But I also know that for a good two years he was so sick: in and out of the hospital; he ended up going blind (another side-effect of diabetes); he couldn’t work. I know that he didn’t want to live like that. But I also know that he is where he is supposed to be. I firmly believe that he is in heaven. And I firmly believe that I will see him again, one day. I’ll have a long talk with him about all that he missed by dying so young. And he’ll have a long talk with me about the fact that he didn’t miss a minute of my life, he had a front row seat, a better seat than he would have had if he hadn’t died so young. I hope he’s not too judgmental. I can remember my sister fussing at me at one time in my life and asking me what Mom and Dad would have thought about whatever it was that I had done. I told her that I didn’t know, they were dead. And because they were dead they didn’t get a say in the way I was living my life. On one hand I believe that but on the other I’m sure that they have kept notes on the good, the bad and the ugly that I have done throughout my life. I hope that I get bonus points for straightening things out and turning out half-way decent. I would hate to disappoint them. Ha!
Gotta love celebrating at a Mexican restaurant
And I don’t consider myself old. Yes, I have a whole lot of aches and pains. But I still get around half-way decent. I can still keep up with my 2 year old grandson. Not for very long, mind you, but I can keep up. I am truly blessed that I don’t have anything physically wrong. I won’t touch whether I have anything wrong mentally. Ha. But I also know that because my parents died so young I spent a good part of my life believing that I would die young. I can remember people trying to reason with me and telling me that I was fine. They would tell me that I didn’t have diabetes or that I didn’t smoke so I wasn’t going to get lung cancer. I assured them that didn’t matter, that I would be hit by a truck walking to my car or something like that. But that didn’t happen and in a few short hours I’ll get to turn another year older. I’ll get to make a big deal out of my birthday and eat all of the chocolate cake that I want. Of course the day after I’ll have to get back on the straight and narrow because I am getting older, and fatter, and I don’t need another reason to be yelled at by my wonderful doctor. I know that I have a lot of life to live, I have a whole lot of things to get done. And it’s time to get down to business. So hopefully I won’t go anywhere any time soon.
That doesn’t mean that I’m not ready. I so look forward to the day that I get to join Mom and Dad and my granddaughter Lucy in heaven, if I’m lucky enough to get to join them. So I’m ready to go any time. But I hope that God is not ready for me yet. Because there’s a lot of things I still want to do on earth, with my family, with my friends, and with friends and family that I haven’t met yet.
Every year on my children’s birthday I tell them the story of the day they were born. I do that religiously. They don’t have a choice in the matter. If I get their voice mail then I leave the story on their voice mail, even if I have to call back two or three times to finish the tale. That doesn’t bother me. I need them to know how they came into this world. And I think I do that because I was always so intrigued about my birth. I was intrigued with the fact that my daddy had to wait in the waiting room for 18 hours for me. He read an entire book. I wish I knew the name of that book. Wouldn’t that be a cool keepsake. But I want to know other things too. I want to know if Mom was in pain. I’m sure she had drugs but did she have lots of drugs and was not aware of me coming or if they just gave her something to take the edge off. I want to know if anyone came to the hospital to sit with her or Daddy while they waited on me. I want to know who kept my older sister. I assume it was my grandmother or my aunt but they could have been with Mom. So, I tell the kids the story of the day they were born and then I tell them that we have something in common. I tell them that we’ll never see 16 years old again, ever. And they tell me that they’re glad about that. I just grin and know that I am raising them right. Daddy would be proud.
Mom and Dad, save me a piece of cake, and say a little prayer for me tomorrow. Because we all know that I’ll never be 58 years old again, as long as I live. I, for one, am celebrating that!
I have such good friends!