On Your Eightieth Birth Anniversary

 

It's another 4th of July.

As we all know so well, the 4th was always your birthday. Born in Holdenville, OK, among the few of your siblings not born at home in Browns, IL.

I've never been to Holdenville. But it's on the list to go to one day and see.

You died just shy of your 47th birthday. 

I'm now past that age by two years. Nathan is the same age you were. We both realized how short that timeframe really is. Neither of us could drink an adult beverage or drive (even as you occasionally let us take a turn steering whatever vehicle we had at the time).

With every milestone or significant family activity, we ask how different it would be if you were alive with us. Beyond the grave awareness or presence is still robed in mysteries to the living. Our personal, or professional achievements? The graduations, marriages, and grandchildren you never met in life? Those grandchildren are now young adults, shaping their life goals and achievements. 

Indulging an active imagination, let's celebrate your 80th birthday. It would be a cookout, at 248 E Franklin or some farmhouse you always wanted.  I'm sure you would insist on minding the grill, as Mom and daughters-in-law prepared the other dishes. Your sons would join you in adult beverages, chatting over your Michelob Ultra with our chosen beers, spirits, or wine on a porch, deck, or the ever-conversational pit of the garage. Talking about our work, seeking your wise counsel, and you reminding us how great retirement will be. The grandchildren would interrupt, anxious to share their lives with you. And you would let great-grandchildren do whatever they wanted to do with you. You gleam with pride as the center of attention, your laughter filling the yard.

Cake and ice cream (maybe homemade) served. Or is it apple pie? We know that whatever place you lived would have some dwarf apple trees.

Evening comes, and with it the fireworks. You probably share your idea of taking a plane and watching all the towns set off their fireworks at dusk, having that birds-eye view.  But whatever local display we would have chosen to go to, a little caravan of cars would travel together to sit under the stars and wait for the spectacle.

The fireworks are completed, and we linger as an extended family trying our best to say our goodbyes but delaying the inevitable, though brief, separation (I can't imagine you not checking in at least weekly by phone or some technology!?). The invitation is always the same: you can stay over if you don't feel like driving at night. Since your birthday falls on a Thursday, most of us would have to say our regret, since we all have to work on Friday. You would remind us that you don't have to work anymore. 

Back to the present, I return. While there is an empty chair at every milestone, it reminds me of the precious value of life and living in this place now. Make memories. Have experiences, whether good or bad, as they have the power to form or inform you. Take risks. And as long as we can recall you, you live among us again. 

Oh, and we would celebrate Mom's birthday (it's on the 7th) and you would join us in Decatur on the 8th for your grandson's 21st birthday.

Level Unlocked & Badges Earned

Forty-seven.

Four sylables.

Two score + Seven.

It is not a number that usually merits notice. Hardly ever considered a milestone. There are those "special" birthdays, but they tend to spread out after your teenage to 21 years. Maybe the decade count is about the only one that matters until retirement eligibility. Most birthdays are "just a number" most of the time.

Except when they have another meaning. Mine does.

I have already outlived Jesus Christ (well, except for the lives and reigns forever part) but the life of Jesus before resurrection was about aged thirty at crucifixion. Outlived Elvis, and other celebrities "gone too soon." Tragedies, accidents, disease seem to have no prefered status necessary or required. They take them young, middle, and old all of the time.

This year had two milestones for me to cross over. The first was January 2, 2023. The second is today.

The number to exceed was 17,114. That happened on January 1. 

It was the number of days my father lived his life, July 4, 1944 - May 12, 1991. 

My new years came a day late. But I crossed over to day 17,115 all the same. Few even knew I was celebrating. But I was. 

This birthday I come marching in as I have for twelve years; with cardiovascular issues. Managed, stable, but still with a damaged heart working in spite of its incumberances. My capacity is compromised, but it does not greatly impact my day to day health. Recently my cardiologist commented that for my condition, I have a "remarkable" quality of life, with the prospect of decades yet to come. I need to work on a few disciplines of exercise and diet, as this bodily unit seems to resist and rebel from time to time. 

But a "curse" is now behind me. It was official on January 2: I have outlived one of my parents. 

I have been given extra days one of them never saw, never experienced, never lived. I need to honor days more, give time wisely to what outlasts the momentary, incidental, and the negligable. I am probably guilty of overcomitting, under-performing, over-promising and leaving too much unfinished, half-started, and abandoned too soon or too late. I should say "No" more often, and "Yes" a little less.

Sometimes I accept busyness at the fear of boredom or irrelevance. Half-baked, half accomplishments feel somewhat better than none.

Each day is an opportunity to fill, a time to experience, a moment to consider what your life is bringing to others and what you will one day leave as a legacy. The intimacy of nearly losing it all at just thirty-five makes you a little more considerate of what a gift life truly is. 

My wife has been blessed with twenty-one years (to twenty-two in October) of marriage. My parents only had sixteen.

Our son turns twenty in July. I only had fifteen years to share with my father in his life. 

Today is day 17,168. Age: 47. A day with labor and play, obligations, expectations, deadlines and tasks.

And either a red velvet cake or a slice of Coconut Cream pie in the future.

I am at another level, and I earn a new milestone badge.

I will celebrate. Each new day can also be an opporunity to enjoy it.

Requiem & Epilogue for a Home

On the morning of January 13, 2015, my childhood home was destroyed by fire. The aftermath was pretty shocking. Rooms full of memories reduced to burnt timber and open sky. Loving shelter now open to the elements of nature. For 23 years, this was the memorized address, phone number, and identity of "home" I would have. From learning to bicycle on the back yard sidewalk, to venturing around the "hometown" as a growing teenager, to finally commuting to college mostly from my still vibrant revolutionary war soldier wallpapered bedroom with star curtains gradually changing to blinds and solid valances, my life revolved around a small speck in a Central Illinois village until I moved out as an adult.

It is an odd coincidence that in the midst of hearing my childhood home being destroyed, that I also heard my Grandmother's (and even my Great-Grandparents) home had been demolished in the little village in southern Illinois where generations of my family were born, nurtured, died, and buried. Again, it was not something destined to be a landmark to tourists. But it was a landmark to our family story.

Funny how such places can, in a sense, live with you even after your daily life has settled elsewhere. In my mind's eye, I can recall the various pieces of furniture my parents bought and sold and their locations within walls now damaged, probably irrevocably, by fire. I can recall the black telephone that sat on an end table in my grandparent's house, the staircase in their dining room, and the way the curtains flapped against the cabinets in the kitchen when caught by a warm Southern Illinois breeze.

Physically, they have vanished. The timbers, plaster, vinyl floors, and berber carpets are gone.

I said goodbye to both houses years ago. My grandmother left her house for a nursing home not long after I began college. My mother sold the fondly remembered Butterick Homestead in 2004, but I had already moved into my own home in 1999.

But now I cannot go back "home" ever again. My grandparent's town, with its stores, even a bank, gas station, was already fading away in the 1950s, as better opportunities grew in larger towns a few more miles away. My hometown seems to change a little slower, but still changes nonetheless. I can still stand in the high school, walk the elementary school hallways. But I know the school district has fewer students than when I attended. Nostalgia is casting its polish over the cherished childhood memories and story.

Many of my friends will recall fondly the neighborhood parties my parents hosted at their home. Many of my cousins will recall visiting our home and wandering the streets and parks of Bement. I knew that my family had arrived in the pantheon of small town citizens when someone referred to the fire location as "the old Butterick house."

Cast a set of good memories, stories, struggles, and celebrations where you live. Take them with you whenever you leave. Let nostalgia tickle your soul a little. It is in those things that one can truly always find a way to home, again.

The Cosmic Significance or Amazing Coincidence of May 17 in My Life

"It could mean that that point in time inherently contains some sort of cosmic significance. Almost as if it were the temporal junction point for the entire space-time continuum. On the other hand, it could just be an amazing coincidence."- Dr. Emmett Brown, Back to the Future II

May 17 comes and goes every year. But for me, it seems to have either cosmic significance or amazing coincidence in turning points in my life.

My first kiss was delivered by someone whose birthday is May 17.
My first college graduation was held on May 17.
My Masters of Divinity Degree from Christian Theological Seminary was presented to me on May 17, ten years after my first college degree, almost to the exact hour!
Our family friend contractor also has a birthday on... you guess it, May 17.
Several of my dear friends celebrate their birthday with my family friend contractor... May 17.

I take a wary eye towards May 17, 2018... is an unknown doctorate to be presented on that future date?  It happens to be a Thursday...

For me, the jury is out on my temporal junction point for the entire space-time continuum or an amazing coincidence...