It is always good to be around to observe the day of your birth as it means the Lord saw fit to let you stick around for one more year. This year is one of those milestones you have as you go through life. Six and you’ll be starting grade school. Becoming a teenager. Sixteen and you can get that drivers license. Most can’t wait to get to twenty-one and maybe have that first legal beer. Then there is a long interval before the next ones and you don’t much look forward to those as much as those that came before. Forty and the realization you are reaching middle age. Fifty and things start breaking down and parts don’t work as well as they use to. Sixty and you have become a senior citizen (the discounts are ok though). Seventy and you overhear yourself being described as “that old man”.
Today I’ve reached the 75th – the three quarter century mark. Nothing special about it. Folks I grew up with and went through grade school and high school with, if they are still living, will celebrate their 75th birthday this year along with several million others. Today is no different than yesterday. I woke up feeling like I was about a 100, but as the day wore on I got younger as the aches and pains lessened, the stiffness eased, and my head got clearer.
Reminiscing often comes along with the birthday observation and you look back not necessarily remembering past birthdays, but things you have experienced over your lifetime. The happy times and perhaps some not so happy. As I take inventory of the good and the bad, I do realize how blessed I have been though there were periods I didn’t feel blessed at the time.
I was blessed by having a loving grandmother who took me in at the age of two and raised me. I was blessed by meeting and marrying a young girl who has put up with me and my baloney for over 50 years. I was blessed by being the father of two children who grew up to be good people and good citizens in spite of me. I was blessed by a few good friends over the years – those with whom I could share the good and the bad without any judgment. I was blessed by an individual who took me under his wing and gave me a start down a path toward a decent career.
But most of all, I have been blessed by my heavenly Father who has undeservedly kept me and generously provided for me and mine for these 75 years. Oh, He didn’t see fit to make me wealthy or famous, but I was given all I ever needed and then some.
This evening we will dine at our favorite Italian restaurant and have a nice bottle of wine to mark the occasion. No big hoop-te-doo. Earlier today I saw that the ingredients for making a cake had come out of the pantry, but later they were back in the pantry – so no cake I guess. Well, maybe next year.