Happy birthday, Evelyn! Our birthday memories are a gift to me
Today’s my wife’s birthday, and while we have some simple celebration plans, just now I’m remembering bigger parties on birthdays past. Is it possible that memories are even more important these days, when the whole issue of memory has transitioned from pastime to crisis?
I’m not sure, but I’ve decided not to let this birthday pass without creating a couple of new memories. Meanwhile, I’ll savor some celebrations from years gone by.
Surprises
I’ve pulled off surprises for Evelyn’s birthday twice. When she turned 40, I cooked up an errand to get her out of the house while friends gathered here to help me fix a meal for the occasion. That was decades before digital cameras, and I don’t know if we have some faded photos from the occasion in the bottom of a box somewhere. I do know she expected nothing, and the house full of friends enjoyed pulling off the surprise. A nice memory.
I surprised her for her 70th birthday, too, with a weekend trip to a rental home on the shore of one of upstate New York’s Finger Lakes. It was a long way to go for just two nights; Evelyn was certainly ready to be there before we arrived long after supper that Friday. She didn’t know I’d arranged for our kids (then from the Philadelphia area and New York City) to surprise her for 36 hours of celebration and laughter.
Lunch and a special gift for Evelyn’s surprise weekend with family to celebrate her 70th birthday, October 2015.
It was a better plan than the one I had conceived for her 50th birthday. I decided to send her a bouquet of 50—count ‘em, 50!—pink carnations! I even wrote a poem and took it in an envelope for the florist to include in the delivery to her office.
But I didn’t anticipate that “bouquet” hardly described the overladen basket that looked far more like a funeral spray than a romantic homage. Somehow she stuffed it into her little car to bring home and we moved furniture to find a place for the arrangement in our family room. Regretfully, I don’t have a picture. I think my camera didn’t have a wide-angle lens! You can be sure I haven’t planned to bring 70-plus of anything into our house today.
Our daughter was in town to bake the cake for this birthday dinner with friends in 2017. In 2019 (below) a pumpkin pie was better than a cake.
Friends
But our home has been the site of more than one celebration for Evelyn’s big day. Seldom have we gone through a whole birthday week without some sort of gathering with others to tell Evelyn we love her.
Tonight, we’ll be with some of those friends who will sing Happy Birthday to Evelyn while we’re visiting with their grown kids in town for just a few days from their home on the other side of the world. It will be a privilege to be a part of their short time together.
Another couple had intended to bring us dinner tonight, but instead they’ll be here tomorrow evening. I’m buying extra candles to accompany the Happy Birthday song sung a second time.
All this helps me remember that our present—although often challenging and sometimes sad—still brings us occasions for warm memories to add to the bank of them we’ve accumulated from the past. I’ll savor the reminder as a gift to me even though Evelyn is the one opening a present or two today. (And I’ll plan to post a couple of pictures from THIS birthday sometime soon.)