By Susan Govern
Birthdays are the mile-markers of our lives. Sometimes we look forward to them – our first double-digit birthday, Sweet Sixteen, Eighteen, and of course Twenty-One (LEGAL!).
For me, birthdays are a celebration of life – after 30 (which I really didn’t mind) I stopped actually paying much attention to the number and concentrated on the memories made the past year and the ones I had to look forward to. This habit of ignoring my age was more annoying to others, I think, than to me.
I remember once at a new doctor’s office I was asked my age, I thought for a moment and realized I really didn’t remember. I laughed and simply answered “I was born in (year), you do the math then we’ll both know.”
Yep, memories are what it’s all about. Each April when my birthday comes around I think about some of the best times I’ve had. My family and friends play a BIG part in those “mile-markers of my life”.
Growing up as an only child I felt a real closeness to my cousins. They were the brothers and sisters I didn’t have. When we got together for a visit…those times became golden to me and I locked the memories up in a special place in my mind and my heart.
I can still recall vividly playing with my cousins in Southern Ohio. I easily picture taking turns riding on their bikes down a dirt and gravel road near my aunt and uncle’s house that led back up to the cemetery behind their property. I can also see us hanging out in the yard near the old well at my paternal grandpa’s house on the visits in the years before he passed away.
I think it drove my folks crazy all the times they had to say to stay away from that well. I’m sure they pictured having to fish one of us out of it at some point, although that never did happen.
Then there were the trips to Pennsylvania to visit my cousins on my mom’s side. The house my grandparents lived in to me was “magical”. It sat on a hill with a walk-out basement and an open area under the front porch. My cousin closest in age to me was always up for a game of “spy”. We would go in the back door and down the basement, then sneak out the basement door, hide under the porch and “spy” on any grown-ups sitting and talking on the porch above.
Looking back, I believe they knew because often they would slip into speaking Slovak and we didn’t understand anything said.
My P.A. cousins would sometimes come to Ohio to visit. Once I remember my cousin Sylvia was coming with me and my parents on the old Aquarama Ship. It was a cruise ship that traveled Lake Erie from Cleveland up to Detroit and back. It was just a day trip but especially exciting for someone only around age four or five. Back then people dressed up to go for the day-long excursion. I insisted on wearing my sailor style dress, and the pictures we have of that day are priceless to me.
Reflections of happy memories include so many of my friends through the years. There were birthday parties when we were growing up. The times we slept out in tents in my friend’s backyard and thought it was so great to be sleeping outside. All the Trick or Treating we did as a group, and the times we played kickball or tag or hide and seek – times that meant laughter and good fun.
And of course, not to be forgotten are the crazy times and lots of laughter and sharing with my girlfriends during our teen years as we discussed our hopes and plans for our futures.
As an adult, there have been more wonderful times that became treasures. Meeting my husband and his family – getting to know them through all the cook-outs, boating adventures (and misadventures), the eventual weddings that united us plus the blessings of all the babies in the family that have been born over the years. Our crazy times on our vacations all together at the ocean and not to be forgotten – the laughing till we are crying on family game nights.
Oh my – yes – bring on the birthdays – each and every one! I don’t count the numbers but I count the memories. Birthdays are to celebrate LIFE and I have so very much to celebrate.
