Happy Birthday to Me!

I don’t know about y’all but the older I get, days like today, my birthday, just as holidays do, tend to bring back memories of long ago. It is so ironic when we are kids we can’t wait to grow up and now that I am an adult, I so wish I could go back to my childhood, even for just a visit.

I grew up in such a loving home. I may have had pain and heartache in my adult life but God blessed me into a family, where there was never a single day of my life that I ever doubted if I was wanted, loved and cherished. What a spectacular blessing indeed.

Home for me was a safe haven. My mother made sure that I had the very best of everything, no matter how hard she had to work for me to have it.

My dad died when I was only a year old, so I have no memory of him at all. I think that is one of the biggest reasons that mother showered me with so many material things. Also, my grandmother moved in with us when my dad died and I was her only grandchild, and my mother’s sister never married and I was her only niece, so I was just a spoiled by them as well.

Many people have asked me how Mother balanced love with all the things she gave me and if my friends were jealous of the things I had. I can’t explain the balance but I know I never wanted for a thing. I don’t feel my friends were ever that envious, at least not that they told me. I had the house that everyone wanted to come too, Mother was generous with all my friends. If you came to spend the weekend with us, all your favorite foods were bought and cooked and if you came on a regular basis, as did most, she learned what you liked and just kept things on hand for you to enjoy while you were there. You truly were made to feel “at home.”

Even after I moved out and got married, many of my friends still went to visit with mother because they loved her so. She even ended up hiring several of them to work for her once they were out of school.

I had my share of envy of my friends, as well. Most of them had siblings and dads and they got to go on trips and vacations. We never did things like that. Mother never felt comfortable traveling alone with a child and so we just never did it. Though she did make sure, anytime I was invited to go on vacations and trips with my friends that I was able to go, so I never felt like I missed out on most things.

I always envied the ones who would talk about lying in bed on Christmas Eve with their siblings and just knowing they could hear Santa on the roof. I never had any of that. My Christmas tree may have been overloaded with gifts that mother started shopping for months and months before Christmas and don’t get me wrong, I loved it all; especially the love she put into it all but having a sibling to share it with would have been wonderful. Also, I had no family members close to my age, so there were no cousins to play with either. So, I guess you could say I had things about my friends that I envied and perhaps they did me too.

One of the things I have been told most by old friends is how much the loved coming to my house and how welcome they always felt.

Home life for me as a child, was as very safe, loving and wonderful place. My identity was not in the things I had but rather because of the love, attention and affection that my mother and grandmother gave me, along with my Christian upbringing.

Were all the things wonderful to have? Of course. However, I have to say the greatest memory I have is spending time with my mother. My mother always worked and my grandmother kept me. Wednesday was her day off and our day together. If it was during the school year, we did something after school, if it was during the summer, we spent the day together. Even though she worked, she was always a grade mother, Girl Scout leader and anything else I was involved in she was there for and I know it was not easy for her. She never missed a function that I was in, be it in school or in church.

I got a car for my 16th birthday and then a brand new car for my graduation. I remember Mother telling me she wanted me to get a part-time job because she wanted me to learn a good work ethic. I feel I have always had that and after I finished school I started with a company and stayed there for 15 years and went up the corporate ladder very quickly.

Last year a friend mentioned to me that she had never had a birthday party until last year, on her 43rd birthday. It reminded me of things I have always taken for granted. From the time of my first birthday, until just these last few years, I have always had birthday parties, with special gifts and cakes, surrounded by people who love me most.

When I think back on my childhood, it is not of the “stuff” I had but rather the love I had and felt. I have been told by so many people in regards to my mother, “I have never known a woman to love a child more than your mother does you. “ I feel that love everyday and I know I am blessed.

This year I am especially blessed. After being single for many years, God has blessed me with my Thomas and he is the sweetest man, I have ever met. He loves the Lord but still most amazing to me is that he loves me and the way he loves me. I feel so blessed that I don’t even know what to say.

For the first time in years, I am happy and hopeful about my future, our future. I am more at peace than I have been in years and I am just so thankful. So, very thankful.

So, while looking back over my 42 years, there have been many lows but there have been even more highs and I have been so very blessed.