A meditation on birthdays, with respect to Sekai

So, I almost skipped my birthday this year. I'm 36, which is a blessing, since I've learned all too well that not everybody makes it that far. But it just seemed wrong to celebrate another year of life when my sweet potato no longer has his and I no longer have him. Plus birthdays upset him. Or at least they did when he came back. Turns out his birthday wasn't really celebrated, so the idea of someone else's birthday was a reminder of something else he had missed, something else that hurt.

Growing up, I always had a birthday party. Always. It was my special day. A day when my mother, my family, my friends took time to celebrate me. Perhaps you had the same experience.

Here's something that just occurred to me, though. Sekai used to say, when the depression hit especially hard, or the memories came fast and furious, that he felt like he shouldn't exist, or that he wished he had never been born.

Celebrating a birthday, acknowledging someone's birthday is like saying, hey, I'm glad you were born. I'm sorry that my boy didn't have that growing up, except on his third and fifteenth birthdays (and in little parties at school). I am grateful that I have had that every year of my life.

Birthday or no birthday, take a moment and let someone know that you are glad they were born. Just a thought.