Birthday Blessings
“Are you as old as my daddy?”
Standing alongside my bed, my four-year-old grandson pressed his ginger curls into my pillow and woke me with his words. When he cocked his head and knit his brows, he looked so like his father… my youngest son.
He crawled up next to me to offer birthday snuggles.
“Nana, I know you’re a widdle-bit older than me, but you aren’t as old as my daddy, right?”
“Oh, I’m nowhere near his age.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think so.”
“No way.”
“ I should be three but I had a birthday, so I’m four.”
“Yeah, I should be 35, but today is my birthday, so I’m not.”
That seemed to make a whole lot of sense to him, and it certainly did to me, so end of discussion about age.
I think there’s too much discussion about age and not enough discussion about what accompanies it.
I get it. Some things, perhaps, one doesn’t welcome.
I hosted a 40th dinner party for my daughter and twelve girlfriends, and overhearing their conversation while in the kitchen, made me laugh. While lighting the candles on the cake, I had to confess that they were sounding an awful lot like my girlfriends and me, lamenting about new ailments and aches that had before then, gone undetected.
They found that hysterical, and so did I.
I couldn’t help but sing the lyrics to Fiddler on the Roof’s “Sunrise, Sunset” on my way back to the stove. “When did she grow to be a beauty? I don’t remember growing older. When did they?”
I love me a good musical score while cooking in the kitchen. Better than therapy sometimes.
Ailments and aches do accompany aging, but there’s the potential for so much more. My wish is, as I blow out the candles on my birthday cake, that I focus on the more. The good more.
More inside jokes with friends you’ve had since junior high.
More coffee dates where you order a blueberry muffin and an almond croissant without lamenting the calories.
More shared moments with tears shed...some, because you’re bearing someone’s sadness and some because it’s so healthy to laugh at our bodies’ jiggles and wiggles.
More time to listen.
More time to walk with littles, slowly.
More time to hear the same story again because the lonely neighbor loves to tell it.
Age is a blessing. I can name many who wish they had been given that gift. My daughter-in-law’s mom, my friend, Sharon, my sister, Susan.
We don’t get to choose. It’s a gift. And it’s a gift I refuse to squander.
Lord, open my eyes to see your goodness in the years. May I be a wise steward of its blessing.
PS Check out my Encouragement for Today on Maundy Thursday. Ever wonder what that strange name means? Read my thoughts here.
