“God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.”
~Voltaire

Every birthday celebrated carries with it a certain uniqueness. Just the sheer act of adding another number to your age provides difference. There are golden birthdays. Milestone birthdays. Birthdays that are quiet and those that are overflowing with celebration. The older one gets there are birthdays that are remembered as particularly special. They were celebrated in a unique setting. There were surprises. And sometimes there are birthdays whose number a person does not want to admit. A lifetime, I imagine, holds them all.

Yesterday as I celebrated my birthday, I remembered the first birthday party I ever had. The yearly blow out celebrations kids have these days were not an annual occasion then. If you were lucky, you had two or three parties in your youth. Mine was a party at my house. My mother had placed a long table in the living room and chairs were arranged around. There was a table cloth. The girls wore dresses, Sunday best dresses. And the boys arrived in coats and ties. It was a scene out of Leave It To Beaver! Just thinking of the awkwardness and the excitement made me laugh. And thinking of how drastically different this party was from the many we arranged for our sons had me shaking my head.

If I had to describe my celebration yesterday, I would have to say it was an embarrassment of riches. The ways in which people offered their well wishes caused me, once again, to remember the amazing people in my life. When I tried to decide how I wanted to actually celebrate, I realized that I simply wanted to do more of what I already do. I wanted to go to my favorite coffee shop, have coffee with my husband, read the newspaper, walk through the neighborhood I love, spend time talking to friends and have dinner with the family that is near by. I want to believe this is contentment and a love for my life and not simply a failure of imagination.

But yesterday’s birthday was also filled with the privilege of being a part of the memorial service for one of our dear ones. This ninety-eight year old had been both mentor and colleague. Her life was filled with the tragedies and triumphs of most lives. She had risen above most of them through a faith and perseverance that was inspiration to us all. She was a writer and student of scripture whose quick wit and welcoming spirit had been the companion of our community for more than forty years. To be able to participate in the celebration of her life was a gift to all who were present and to me.

In the late afternoon as I was driving home, I heard a report on the news that caused my heart to race and fear to well up from that place it lives when its not wrecking havoc. A group of fourth-graders had been fossil hunting in the park near our house and there has been a landslide. Children were hurt and missing and one was known to be dead. Arriving home after a circuitous drive past emergency vehicles and flashing lights, the sound of helicopters over head became the soundtrack for our pre-birthday dinner conversation. We know this park well, our son takes groups of students there regularly. We could imagine just where these young people and their adults had been climbing. Our neighborhood seemed cloaked in a fog of sadness and my prayers are being sent to all those families and innocent ones affected.

Each day carries the fullness of life. There are births to celebrate. There are lives to mourn. There is the joy of a long life, well lived and there is the overwhelming tragedy of those that did not get to celebrate another birthday. This living is big and it does not serve us well when we choose to pretend otherwise. Each day is a gift held out to us in the hope that we will not take its importance lightly but that we will honor it with the sacredness it offers. This embarrassment of riches is the gift of every day if we have the eyes to see.