The Birthday Story

Every November, when we remember the Holy Souls, I think of my mom and dad. This is a memory I wrote once - it is one of my fondest….always tell your children their birth story.

My father was all of five feet tall. This never seemed to bother him, ever. He was a body builder, a skier, a gymnast and an acrobat. I have heard blood chilling tales from my mother of him doing handstands on bridge rails just for the fun of it, and, no doubt, to hear her quite satisfying screams. He was a man who relished the element of surprise.

He played the violin with cultured grace, but let us just say his wit was of the ‘earthy French peasant’ variety. To this day, I count him the best raconteur I have ever met. He would regale us at many a week night dinner with stories of his childhood recounted in his native French tongue. He had everyone rolling and pounding the table in laughter, even those of our friends who did not understand a word of it. His face alone was enough.

He had a weakness for cars – the more “souped up” the better. When he could afford it, he bought a red and black Camaro with a horn that played La Cucaracha. We always knew he was home as he would start honking way down the block to the delight of all the neighbor kids and the horror of my understated, cultured, Victorian mother. That horn was the pride of his life and the bane of hers; she called it the “saint maker.”

He made the same weekday breakfast all his life - oatmeal with honey and cream. He made buckwheat pancakes on Saturdays and let me help him.

One day he brought my sister and I on a mystery trip that ended up at a horse farm and he announced that we would learn to ride English hunter. This was an absolute dream of mine and he just made it come true one day out of the blue.

I began to notice over time that in most of my fondest memories of him, there was always present his familiar penchant for surprise.

He introduced me to the glory of Beethoven and showed me how to listen to his music – volume up to 10 on the dial. I shared the 9th symphony with him many a time and we conducted it together with wooden spoons. He loved Beethoven because he always said that Beethoven captured the whole of life: the grand right down to the simple aspects of life. He was the reason I loved classical music. He was the reason I loved to read. In fact, he was the reason I loved so many things.

The one thing my father never was? Effusive. We would never have ascribed the word “gush” to my father; not through any stretch of our imaginations. He had trouble with expressing emotions of the tender sort. He would shy away from demonstrative anything. He kept all those emotions well locked up in his deeper, controlled self hidden under humor, a hard work ethic, and no nonsense parenting. I never once held it against him. For I knew with absolute, intuitive certainty that those deeper feelings were there stirring and that I was loved beyond all telling if not showing. Yet, as life sometimes reveals, God has His own element of surprise, and my father was to be the shocked recipient of that giddy joy that is God’s gift. I was to be privy to the tale, for, as both my father and I discovered, joy such as this can only spill over - effusively.

It came as a memory, this perfect joy. The memory is not mine at all but my Dad's. Every year on February 6th, after I blew out the candles on my birthday cake, my Dad gushed. He gushed! I began to anticipate this miracle about as much as my presents. He and my Mom would tell me the same story every year, almost verbatim, and it never got old. It was the story of the day, no, the very moment I was born. He was there. This was a time when dads were not allowed in the delivery room, but since he was a doctor on staff at Elkins West Virginia General Hospital, he was there with my Mom when I was born. My Mom, in her own miraculous way, was still delightfully in love with the excitement of having children. She had four boys and three girls in her quiver already, but she welcomed another with her own kind of joyful generosity. She did have one specific request from God this time, however. She really wanted another girl.

This was the scene set before me as I ate my birthday cake, my eyes ever widening at the sight of my father gushing like a fountain. He would warm up to the finale – that familiar climax every parent knows – the crashing, incoherent, out of control moment; the great reward of painful hours of suspense – the grand entrance. The child of promise, of hopes and fears! My father remembered it still as if it were yesterday. He would be eating cake himself and in mid lift of the spoon, would say,

“And then you came out, and Mom was crying and I was yelling, 'YOU GOT YOUR GIRL, YOU GOT YOUR GIRL!' And your Mom just let out this SCREAM of happiness. WHAT a day!”

His spoon would crash to the table for emphasis. He said it the same way every single year. Giddy. His eyes were laughing just at the memory of the thing. My Dad was not effusive. But that was a memory that after ALL those years still made him giddy. It makes me cry every time I think of it. I was wanted. I was a gift. I was a girl. I was an answer to my Mom's prayer; her eighth and final prayer. And I made my father….gush.

Being planned by God and sent to make two people deliriously happy. I had nothing to do with it. I was created by God because He wanted to create me…with green eyes, brown hair, the paternal nose, with a soul for poetry, and a laugh like an uncoiling spring! And I will always know I was His idea. He told me every year through the mouth of my dear Dad. The moment I was given to my Mom's waiting arms and my Dad's yelling laughter. I was there and I heard that laughter even though I was a newborn baby. My ears heard that first sound on earth. Laughter and crying at the same time.

I have that story on hard days and happy days. On those inevitable days when I wonder what the point of me is after all. When dealing with insensitive boors, or sadness, or fear, or self doubt. When wondering if I am a good mom, or if I did everything right in the end. Whatever comes my way, I have that memory. I was gift. I was not my own idea. God sent me to fill my father with the shocked surprise of joy. I made a grown man cry. I am fearfully, wonderfully made. What a giddy, humbling thing that is.

So, tell your children their birthday story even if you never tend to gush at any other time. Tell it every year with as much giddiness as you can, especially if you are a dad. They will have it forever in their memory bank - that they made two people deliriously happy and the first sound they heard was laughter. This is perfect joy.

This essay first appeared in Dappled Things Magazine.