1 post tagged “parents”

... until I turn 33.

Birthdays were always a very big deal for me. I think it's largely because in my family, your birthday isn't just a celebration of you, but also a celebration for Mom. Mom, after all, was the one who survived the trauma of childbirth, and my birthday is the anniversary of that moment.

My birthday (and my sister's, too) was also a big deal to my parents because we survived. My older brother died when he was just four days old, and I know my parents still grieve on the anniversaries of his birth and death. I remember asking my father once if, at my birth, he had to choose between my life and my mom's whose life he would choose, and, without hesitation, he said, "I would have the doctors do everything to save you." When I pressed him for an explanation, he said something along the lines of, "I love your mother and it would make me very sad, but I could always get another wife. I couldn't get another you." I never really understood that statement until I had a child of my own.

My biggest birthday party to date was my 7th birthday. In fact, we didn't have big birthday parties with friends until we were in high school. But for my 7th birthday, my parents pulled out all the stops. They ordered engraved invitations on pink paper (mind you, this was 1981 when they ordered these) with two different dates: one for my friends, and one for all of their friends. Mom hired a clown (Penny Pockets; I'll never forget) to come to the house and keep us entertained, and we had tons and tons of food, including gigantic subway sandwiches (again, it's the early '80s and those were the coolest things ever). On both days, the house and the backyard were both packed with people. It was pretty amazing.

That was almost 26 years ago.

I didn't always spend birthdays with my family. In fact, it's been a really long time since I last spent my birthday with my mom. After all, as my grandmother would remind me, my birthday was the one day in the whole year that I was allowed to do anything I wanted (within legal limits). And until a few years ago, I really didn't want to spend it with my parents.

It's funny - the older I get, the more I want my parents around. And the older I get, the better friends I become with both of them.

My parents are retired now and spend half of the year in the Philippines and the other half somewhere in the US. They still call the Valley home when they're stateside, but they could be in New York or Utah or, much more infrequently, Florida. I haven't seen them since June, when they left after Baby C's baptism, and I haven't really talked to them since September, when they left for the Philippines. They won't be stateside again at the end of February, when they'll accompany my sister and nieces (who are visiting them for most of February) back to New York in time for my older niece's birthday party.

So, this year, even before the stroke of midnight on January 3, I already know that I won't get what I want most for my birthday.

Well, there's always next year.