skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Another Birthday
Today I thought I would talk about birthdays having just celebrated mine over the Easter weekend; actually, Good Friday to be exact. Throughout my life, I have also had my birthday fall on Easter, so I have had to celebrate my day with "the good news" and the Easter Bunny. These days I am fortunate to share it with my eight year old granddaughter, Sara, who now has a birthday one day before mine, so we celebrate our special day together. As I was thinking about birthdays, I went back in my memory to think about some of those special birthdays that were memorable for me. The first one I remember is my own eighth year birthday, only because I have a picture of all the kids who came, standing in front of our first house in Cincinnati, Ohio. We look like quite a motley group, and I also notice that I invited my childhood arch enemy, standing next to my best friend. Mother insisted on doing that back then to keep the peace which was quite smart of her, actually. The second memorable birthday was when I turned 16 and I could drive. Little did I know that the bloom would soon be off the rose as I then became the chauffeur for all of my younger 4 sisters, and the errand person for my mother. We had an eight passenger station wagon, and I became every one's ride to school, and the means of travel for my friends who did not yet have "wheels." It was somewhat like having a summer cottage...friends came out of the woodwork! The next year was memorable in that I did not get what I asked for; instead getting a set of golf clubs with lessons at our club which I had little interest in at the time. I even skipped the Saturday morning lessons, instead, picked up my best friend and went out to breakfast. Dad always wondered why I was not a better player after those "lessons." Today, I am so grateful for those golf clubs as I have enjoyed the game tremendously with my husband and friends all my adult life. Skipping forward some years until my 50th when we had a big shindig with friends and family, and our neighbors put up, in our yard, one of those gigantic commercial signs that read, "We think it is nifty that Gretta is turning 50!" Funny and fun! At 60, I was vacationing in California and, by mail, my daughter sent me a special book where she had compiled e-mails, testimonials and special greetings from all of my family and friends etc. I sat there at the restaurant reading, laughing and crying! What a treasure this book is! Sixty-five was elegantly celebrated at a beautiful restaurant here with family and friends in attendance, and then for birthday 70, I returned to Cincinnati where my Summit classmates and I celebrated our birthdays together at the beautiful home of one of our classmates, Florance Connelly Koetters who provided an elegant celebration for all of us. Through all the years I have had, to honor my life, I have tried to remember all those people who came before me, to help make my life what it is today. I love what Warren Buffett refers to as "the ovarian lottery," in which he says that he won the lottery the day that he was born. I also won the lottery!
Today I thought I would talk about birthdays having just celebrated mine over the Easter weekend; actually, Good Friday to be exact. Throughout my life, I have also had my birthday fall on Easter, so I have had to celebrate my day with "the good news" and the Easter Bunny. These days I am fortunate to share it with my eight year old granddaughter, Sara, who now has a birthday one day before mine, so we celebrate our special day together. As I was thinking about birthdays, I went back in my memory to think about some of those special birthdays that were memorable for me. The first one I remember is my own eighth year birthday, only because I have a picture of all the kids who came, standing in front of our first house in Cincinnati, Ohio. We look like quite a motley group, and I also notice that I invited my childhood arch enemy, standing next to my best friend. Mother insisted on doing that back then to keep the peace which was quite smart of her, actually. The second memorable birthday was when I turned 16 and I could drive. Little did I know that the bloom would soon be off the rose as I then became the chauffeur for all of my younger 4 sisters, and the errand person for my mother. We had an eight passenger station wagon, and I became every one's ride to school, and the means of travel for my friends who did not yet have "wheels." It was somewhat like having a summer cottage...friends came out of the woodwork! The next year was memorable in that I did not get what I asked for; instead getting a set of golf clubs with lessons at our club which I had little interest in at the time. I even skipped the Saturday morning lessons, instead, picked up my best friend and went out to breakfast. Dad always wondered why I was not a better player after those "lessons." Today, I am so grateful for those golf clubs as I have enjoyed the game tremendously with my husband and friends all my adult life. Skipping forward some years until my 50th when we had a big shindig with friends and family, and our neighbors put up, in our yard, one of those gigantic commercial signs that read, "We think it is nifty that Gretta is turning 50!" Funny and fun! At 60, I was vacationing in California and, by mail, my daughter sent me a special book where she had compiled e-mails, testimonials and special greetings from all of my family and friends etc. I sat there at the restaurant reading, laughing and crying! What a treasure this book is! Sixty-five was elegantly celebrated at a beautiful restaurant here with family and friends in attendance, and then for birthday 70, I returned to Cincinnati where my Summit classmates and I celebrated our birthdays together at the beautiful home of one of our classmates, Florance Connelly Koetters who provided an elegant celebration for all of us. Through all the years I have had, to honor my life, I have tried to remember all those people who came before me, to help make my life what it is today. I love what Warren Buffett refers to as "the ovarian lottery," in which he says that he won the lottery the day that he was born. I also won the lottery!
No comments:
Post a Comment