Birthdays

Celebrating Birthdays

emyloom 2 Comments

Birthdays, to date, I have had 69. Strangely enough, I don’t remember, not even one from my childhood.

I don’t remember my 21st birthday. At the time I lived in Anchorage, AK, and I had two children. I know I didn’t go out and have the first “legal drink” because I rarely drank alcohol until I was in my fifties.

At 30, all I care to remember is that it was a very sad day. On this birthday, I had been living in Washington State for a little over a year. I had moved here with Chris just months after we married. I thought it would be a new and exciting change for me. I always dreamed of Seattle and thought it must be a magical place from watching the 60’s TV show, “Here Come the Brides.”

The alluring theme song just made me want to go there and see for myself.
“ The bluest skies you’ve ever seen in Seattle,
And the hills the greenest green in Seattle.
Like a beautiful child growing up free and wild
Full of hopes and full of fears
Full of laughter full of tears
Full of dreams to last the years in Seattle.”

I came here with lots of dreams for a full life but just like the song goes there were fears and tears as well.

On my 30th birthday I had a fifteen year old son who was going through his own trials. Hard to be fifteen but being uprooted and moved to a new state compounded those issues. It was hard on both of us.

I had a cake, but it was no celebration. Someone took a picture anyway.

Thirty

Fast forwarding through the next 20 years — I have no recollection at all of any celebrations. But, 50, that was a birthday to remember.

Chris and my friend, Sho, secretly conspired together to give me a wonderful birthday weekend. The day before my birthday, Sho and her partners in crime (Yohanna and Rita) took me out on a long day trip to the Olympic Peninsula. Naturally I became suspicious as the day went on and on. It soon became apparent that we were not headed home and I was not sure what the end game was.

Late in the afternoon we arrived at the Manresa Castle in Port Townsend. The castle was built in 1892 by a local businessman and first mayor of Port Townsend, Charles Eisenbeis. After his death the castle was remained empty for the next 25 years. Then in 1927, it was purchased by the Jesuit priests who used as a training college. In 1968 the building was sold again and converted to a hotel. The hotel is rumored to be haunted but it seems all old hotels have that status.

I was told were going to have a girls weekend not just an outing. When were in the lobby checking in, I looked up and saw Josh, my youngest son. That’s when the surprise unfolded.

Chris had invited many of my friends to a weekend birthday celebration. He reserved rooms for them all (of course with Sho’s help) and organized a catered buffet dinner in the dining room.

Along with Chris and Josh were my older sons, Aaron from Denver and Adam from California. Friends from my church family were there, Jennifer, Karen, Ann, Madeline and Mal, Phil and Carolyn, and Becky and Pat. In addition these social friends, co-workers and neighbors were there: Tony and Jen, George and Julie, Tom and Jean, Howard and Ruth and last but not least, my old friend Jim came up from California.

It was a wonderful evening filled with love from my family and these special people in my life. Several of these lovely people got up and said lots of really sweet and kind things about their relationship with me. It was a very humbling experience.

One thing I found very bizarre about the event was that my two worlds collided that day. My spiritual family/friends and my secular friends were there at the time and the same place. It was really an interesting coming together of people who knew me in very different ways.

Sho gave me a book to write about my day and thoughts on life with each passing birthday. I have to admit I kept it up for a few years, but fell behind. Below is an excerpt from that first entry…

September 2005 – Wow, it’s my 50th birthday! Who would have ever thought, but it must be true about getting up early as you get older because I woke up at 4:30 and couldn’t go back to sleep. I laid awake for a while hoping the old hotel didn’t really have any lost souls wandering around. That thought passed quick enough as I had to visit the facilities and nothing grabbed me on my way in the dark.

My dear sweet Chrissie did manage to surprise me with a wonderful birthday at Manresa Castle. Not only did he surprise me he managed to get my sons and about 25 of my most favorite people here as well. Done — all with the help of Ms. Shoshana and Ms. Yohanna. Those two fibbers… more like those two lovers of my soul.

While lying awake in bed I said a prayer of thanks for my friends… I should have more faith and trust, all of my friends love me…. and I am truly blessed by their presence here today.

So here I am today at sixty-nine. How did I get here? I feel like I am about 42, and the realization that I will be 70 next year I find hard to comprehend. The years have flipped by faster than pages in a book.

This morning I once again I woke up at 4:30 and thanks to social media my spirits were immediately boosted by dozens of well wishes from family and friends.

In the 19 years since my 50th celebration at Manresa Castle, some of the friends that attended have passed on, others moved on to different towns and states, and several others just moved on. Thankfully, the majority are still in my life. They are still loving me, supporting me and celebrating me.

I imagine next year at 70 there will be some kind of big to-do. Now I’m thinking if you make it to 70, one really should celebrate. After all life is short and we should really celebrate every year God has granted us.

Number One
Number Sixty-nine

To Muffet with Love

emyloom 1 Comment

Thanks to the internet and social media apps like Classmates and Facebook I have reconnected with several school friends.  I cannot really say from high school because I never went a day of high school, but I had a few childhood friends that remained in my heart.

The first person I reconnected with was Pattie. In 2006, she was my birthday present as Chris paid for a trip for her to come visit me in Seattle.  We rediscovered each other in a whole new light, through adult eyes and not those of a child.  

Pattie and I only had a few years to reconnect when sadly she left this earth much too soon. I was heartbroken and shocked… the one friend I had contact with from my broken ugly childhood was gone.

At that time I had been on Classmates for 10 years. In all that time I never heard from anyone, and then the day after I learned that Pattie had died, I got a message.

The next day! I was flooded with love, that someone would remember ME and reach out to ME because I always felt I longed to be friends with others, more than anyone wanted to be friends with ME.  

This message was from Muffet.  Growing up, she lived in Sunset Ridge a development of brick homes off Hwy 75 outside of Conroe. I lived across the highway in a older wooden house, a house where the walls in my room were not finished and just open studs. Visiting Muffet’s house was like a fantasy experience. She had beautiful white carpet in her bedroom and I would take off my shoes and wriggle my toes in the fibers; her room was a princess-land.

Muffet had beautiful long hair that her mother would braid and roll around in a bun on top of her head. She looked angelic or like she should be picking flowers somewhere in the Swiss Alps. She was lovely inside and out.

Beyond material things, Muffet was a kind, sweet friend that accepted me, this strange girl who was a square peg in a world of round holes.

After that initial note, we began to correspond regularly and later connected on social media. She included me as part of a group that I left at 14, but a group of people I grew up with and often wondered how life changed for them.

She prayed with me for my son through his hard days with surgeries and setbacks. She gave me hope that God can heal as she shared the health crisis she endured with her own child. We were both caretakers for our elderly mothers, she more hands on with hers as she lived close by. Me more administrative with mine although I did make several trip a year to see her.

On one of those trips in 2018, we finally reconnected face to face. The first time since 1969, it was like we never skipped a beat. We spent two hours laughing, sharing and reminiscing. A wonderful cherished time.

So, back to Muffet’s original message in 2009, was it a coincidence she wrote to me at this critical time? Several times in my life I believe God has arranged events and sent people to comfort me and show me his love just when I need it most.  No, Muffet’s note and whatever the process was that she found me and decided to write, was a gift from God. It was as if God was saying, “I love you, Trish.”

Sunday, is Muffet’s birthday. This friend who has been a gift from God to me. Thank you Muffet for caring enough to contact me. I treasure these past few years of reconnecting and sharing. I look forward to when we can meet face to face again. Muffet, not to sound too Golden Girlish… “Thank you for being a friend.”

Happy Birthday ~ I love you.

Remembering Mother

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I’ve been thinking all week about my Mother and also today on what would be her 90th birthday.

I reminisced about her last few weeks and the time Paulette and I spent with her.

Eight months before she passed away, she had an arterial blockage. At the time, I was gently encouraged to keep her comfortable and let her go peacefully but I could not face that.

Although her dementia took away a lot of her memories, she was still engaging and she could be so funny and brought joy to others. So I pushed for surgery, which was technically successful, it restored the blood flow but she never walked again. With Covid fears and restrictions still in full swing she declined rapidly.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have approved the surgery, before that she seemed to have lots to give in life. Either way, it was a no-win situation. Had I let her go then, I think I would have still gone through a period of guilt. I am sorry she had to suffer.

It comes down to the final verse in this Wm Randolph Hearst poem ~’The River’

“So don’t ask why –
We live or die,
Or whither, or when we go,
Or wonder about the mysteries
That only God may know”

I love this picture of my Mother. It was taken two months after the surgery. I had given her the pearls my auntie sent her and she let me braid her hair. We spent the afternoon singing hymns 💕 It was hard to leave that day, but it was a day I will always cherish.

Birthdays and New Life

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Birthdays and the accompanying wishes are designed to boost us into the new year recharging us with an overwhelming amount of love and encouragement. ~ trish

Another birthday gone by and as with many before I am bolstered with a happy heart full of love from all the love that has been poured into my life.

This year, I am especially grateful for a birthday that falls at the end of the year because, you know, what a crazy year it has been. Just when my spirit was feeling faint, I was sent showers of blessings by way of phone calls, texts, FB posts, cards and balloons. These were all sent with their own special message from friends and family.

I have spoken before about September and how it has always seemed a new beginning to me. It was beginning of the school year, my age ticked over another year and later in life I learned it is beginning of God’s timetable for the New Year (Rosh Hashanah) which often begins in September.

This year my birthday fell within the Ten Days of Awe (or Repentance) which are the the first ten days of the month of Tishri. It begins on Rosh Hashanah and ends on the holiest day in the Jewish calendar Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. These days are days for reevaluating how one lives day to day, repenting for misdeeds and a time of self introspection to weed out the sin and behaviors that fall short of God’s plan for life. Today, I am determined to make changes, to reassess my life and purpose.

This year more than ever there is a need to forgive ourselves, forgive others, turn our backs on sin and hate, and look forward to the new life and year ahead.

This year, once again, I am loved and encouraged. I am also thankful, always thankful because life is a gift.