In all fairness, I've just stopped counting the years. I mean, I know how old I am today, sure. I just don't care to tell anyone. And there's nothing wrong with this approach, really. I'm not lying on any application forms, nor any other random documents that ask for my date of birth. Those who need to know, know. And that should be good enough, right?
A friend recently asked if I knew what time I was born. For some reason I thought this was listed on birth certificates, but they are not - at least not back then at this particular hospital. I remember my mother saying sometime in the very early hours overnight, to perhaps sometime at dawn. I also remember her saying I was supposed to be born on the 16th. That must have been pretty annoying for her. Imagine hoping to get some rest overnight and then BOOM, it's time. Guess I needed an extra day's nap in there? Who knows.
I do share a birthday with a handful of celebrities and great people. Michelle Obama, Jim Carrey, Muhammad Ali, Steve Harvey, and the late legend Betty White, among others. It's a good, eclectic crowd. Throw me into that bunch and the awesomeness surely dips about twenty percent.
My only "real" birthday party occurred at a Chuck E. Cheese back when I was in third or fourth grade. Somewhere there's a mildly blurry Polaroid photo of me and my so-called friends at a table with pizzas and sodas along with the restaurant's not at all frightening restaurant singing mechanical creatures in the background. My family wasn't very big into birthday parties. Mom would bake some bundt cake with frosting, slide however many candles my sis and I were that particular day, take some pics, then we'd all dig in after dinner.
Birthdays in my family were mostly low-key. Maybe those bundt cakes, maybe just a card. Nowadays some Facebook messages or an email. And that's okay. It's the way of the world. Technology combined with a just another day approach. I'm fine with it, but maybe sometimes not fine with it. My father, sister, and myself have now had our first birthdays since my mother passed - and, well, hers too. No bundt cakes after dinner. No candles. No fuzzy Polaroid pics. No cards. No emails. No phone calls.
My mother's service was on a cold March Saturday morning. There's ten weeks in between all our winter birthdays, so of course we were going to have to stand in the shoveled off snow drifts to pay our respects. That's just the way things work with us. The turnout was nice. My sister had some of her friends show up, old high school folks I hadn't seen in quite some time. The retired priest who delivered whatever rites for the service spoke to my father afterward. He told my father he went to seminary with the priest who officiated my parent's wedding in 1971. I thought if anything, given the circumstances, my father found some comfort in that fact.
We're approaching a year soon with my mother's passing. What I've learned from all this is that numbers, times, dates, and what should be fun moments for families pretty much all mean nothing. Especially if you just stop counting time. Make things work with what you have, hug and love one another, and be grateful Father Time hasn't knocked on your door yet.