Dear Reader:

I followed John O’Donohue’s last stanza directions on how to spend my birthday yesterday…I did it in solitude.

On this echoing-day of your birth,
May you open the gift of solitude
In order to receive your soul;
Enter the generosity of silence
To hear your hidden heart,
Know the serenity of stillness
To be enfolded anew

By the miracle of your being.

My birthday started weeks ago with Jo and Colby’s stepping stone and continued with friends dropping by with Boo and Sammy the cardinal masks, flowers, meals, sweets, mountain tomatoes and apples, paintings in anticipated progress, and surcies of all kinds…including my brother’s generous “funny money! gift” 🙂 Thank you Ben! And lastly…ending, amazingly, with a stepping stone yesterday!

Yesterday was filled with texts, emails, funny birthday greetings, beautiful cards, and a  surprising unexpected call from a friend… returning from a darkness of lengthy treatments and surgery to the light of healing. It made my day!

I raised all the windows in the house…letting the cool breezes flow in while I listened to the happy birds thanking me for feeding them yesterday…the air was filled with chirping.

I re-read the last stanza of yesterday’s poem…and I was filled with gratitude for this precious gift on my natal day…being one of solitude that allowed me to thank my soul and Creator for another year of life, the generosity of silence that lifted my heart in gladness, and remaining still long enough to appreciate this day for simply “being.”

I will never be this age again on my birthday…it should be a time of reflection on the past and hopes for an unfolded future with adventures and opportunities galore.

Tonight the birthday celebration will begin…my adult children are taking me out to eat (in an outside dining area)…it is my favorite night of the year….when all of us can update the family on the highlights in our lives since last year and share the hopes for the future.

Then with Saturday comes the family birthday party for Jake…craziness, loudness, wildness, and total fun…the best way to end this beautiful fall month in which Jake and myself were so fortunate to be born in…and Mandy, Lassie, and John too. It is one of the most popular family birthday months.

I spent part of yesterday in the garden… anticipating all the new wonders that will appear this year…and opening Lassie’s gift that I saved to open on my “official” birthday.

Look at this stepping stone…I felt like it fit right in …in front of the singing, gurgling fountain. So pretty….Thank you Lassie! I love it!

Look at the butterfly wrapping paper…definitely symbolic of the number and variety of butterflies in the garden now…I feel like I am ducking to avoid a collision. 🙂

So until tomorrow….A Birthday Prayer

Thank you, God, for giving me another year of life.
Thank you for all the people who remembered me today
by sending cards, and letters, gifts and good wishes.

Thank you for all the experience of this past year;
for times of success which will always be happy memories,
for times of failure which reminded me of my own weakness and of my need for you,
for times of joy when the sun was shining,
for times of sadness which drove me to you.

Forgive me
for the hours I wasted,
for the chances I failed to take,
for the opportunities I missed this past year.
Help me in the days ahead to make this the best year yet,
and through it to bring good credit to myself,
happiness and pride to my loved ones,
and joy to you. Amen.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

While I was enjoying my sedentary birth day…Jake had waited all day for his big birthday present and when he got it….he was anything but sedentary! An electric scooter! He even let Eva Cate play too.

And I don’t think he will be forgetting what number birthday this one is….