I came across this today and thought I'd share it with you...
By: Maralee McKee
Happy Birthday!
If today isn’t your special day, it definitely falls somewhere between tomorrow and 364 days from now. So may I be the first to wish you a very Happy and Blessed Birthday!
As a child and teen, like a lot of us, I had parties to celebrate each birthday, but when adulthood came around, I stopped celebrating. We go all-out for our children (which is good), but if you think about it, there’s much more to celebrate… See More
about turning, let’s say, thirty-nine, than there is about turning nine.
Yet our parties seem to get pushed aside by the demands of adulthood. Money we would spend on our celebrations goes to things like: the mortgage, groceries, the electric bill, sports and music lessons for the kids, and other responsibilities of being grown up.
When my husband’s precious grandmother (who lived to be 104 years old) turned 98, he asked her to share some piece of special wisdom her advanced years had blessed her with. She reached out her too slender but still elegant hand, held his lovingly, and said, “Kent, sweetie, hold on to every day. Life goes by awfully fast.” Then she asked him with a voice mixed with sadness, fearing she knew the answer, and a small bit of hope that maybe she was wrong, “Am I really 98 today?”
“Yes, Grandma, you are,” Kent answered her raising her hand to kiss it.
They sat side-by-side on the porch swing holding hands and swinging slightly and silently for a long time after that. Already legally blind and partially deaf, she had lost her beloved husband of more than 65 years almost a decade prior. It wasn’t long after that day that she stopped speaking. She hadn’t lost the ability. She’d lost the will. We simply believe she didn’t have anything else she wanted to say.
So maybe we should celebrate while we can. Time is fleeting. Life can change in an instant, and in the midst of our busy days, we don’t get nearly enough time with the friends we treasure. To slow down for three or four hours once a year to remember where we’ve just come from and to welcome whatever is around the next bend seems like a gift we should give to ourselves.
Reflection and celebration can bring perspective in ways we can’t imagine.