Valerie Schultz: Another birthday, another occasion to reflect on what it all means
| Friday, Mar 20 2009 06:06 PM
Last Updated Monday, Mar 30 2009 04:25 PM
Indulge me, since today is my birthday, as I quote from myself. One year ago today, I wrote the following entry for the Catholic weekly magazine America, as a contributor to the blog, “In All Things”:
On this morning of my birthday, a half-century-plus-one, my younger sister has given birth to her first child. She said she was sorry I’d have to share my birthday from now on, but really, what an honor! My 11-pound nephew, already too strapping to wear the newborn-size baby clothes, can have the birthday spotlight. He has already given me a gift of which he is, and may always be, unaware.
The light this morning is chasing away an unwelcome “dark night” that has brought luggage and taken up residence in my soul. Where is God? What is faith? Do I even have any? What is the meaning of the words we speak and the things we do each day, every day, over and over, until we barely have the strength to keep our eyes open?
And then, this morning, a new face greets us, newly arrived from deep within the mystery that is my sister. His eyes ponder the light and shadow with impossible wisdom; his fist grasps my finger with a surprising grip; his mouth searches for the source of comfort; his legs pump as my brother-in-law learns how to change a diaper. He is, in my pathetic, heartfelt use of trite, overexposed, maudlin baby-metaphor, a miracle.
He is a miracle hungry for milk and love. He is incarnation. He is hope. The fact that he is here, that he exists at all, is the blood-and-guts proof that God is very much with us. I am reminded of the births of my own children, blessings beyond counting, and the morning light is almost blinding. But I squint, and look anyway. Another journey begins.
A year later, I am sharing my birthday with the grand celebration for a 1-year-old, which is itself a gift to someone who hardly relishes blowing out the monstrous flame of 52 candles. While I am grateful to have a birthday, I am even more grateful to let my nephew shine in the spotlight of one candle.
My nephew looks at the world with his mother’s lovely blue eyes and his father’s quizzical interest in everything. He is beyond adorable, learning to walk and sort of talk and eat solid, fascinating food. He is mechanically inclined and easily delighted. On his first birthday, the many people who love him will gather and bring mountains of presents. The world is indeed his oyster. If he only knew.
Birthdays are funny things: when we are kids, we want them to come faster, because they are definitely the best day of the kid year. When we are adults, we would rather they slow down, as the span of a year seems shorter and shorter, as we barely seem to catch our breath between birthdays, as our past now stretches longer than our future. The world spins at the same speed, but our perspective changes.
Rereading that blog entry almost surprised me: Last year I was suffering a temporary “dark night of the soul,” but I guess I have come through it. I feel more centered, more balanced this year, which is perhaps the hidden grace of age. I have managed to focus not on the night, but on the rise of morning. Or even earlier: these days I get up before dawn. I go outside and drink in the cycle of the moon’s silver light on a quiet world. It is easy to pray with real gratitude for another day, another week, another month, when all is still and fresh. It is easy to thank God for another year of life, especially when it has been shared with, as his parents call my nephew, “the little man.”
For today I am looking forward to the moment, which will be digitally immortalized and someday shown to an adolescent’s huge embarrassment, of my nephew attacking and smearing and reveling in his first frosting on the Winnie-the-Pooh cake that his mother has lovingly constructed. I am looking forward to the fond wishes of those dear to me, and the blackout cake that another sister is baking for me. I am also looking forward to, God willing, a year of blessings and challenges, as well as next year’s advent of my nephew’s Terrible Two stage. Such untold joy he is still to bring his family!
In the future, I will be the batty old aunt in my nephew’s life who shares his birthday. I will explain that our birthday is sometimes in Lent, always in spring, often rainy, but never sad. I will also be around to remind him that the totally coolest people have March birthdays. A sampling: St. Patrick and Dr. Seuss, Aretha Franklin and Cesar Chavez, Mr. Rogers and Mia Hamm, Albert Einstein and Rudolf Nureyev, John Updike and Vincent Van Gogh. The little man, who no doubt will someday soon be taller than his aunt, is in good company.
He is too young to make his birthday wish, so I will make it for him: May he be well. May he be blessed. May he and his generation fill the world with hope, this precious boy, this miraculous sign of God with us.
