Blanche’s Birthday Abounds with Blessings

Yesterday morning, I picked up the phone and heard four beautiful voices singing,” Happy Birthday to you.” It was Matt, Dawn, Sara, and Nathan, starting my day off right. And, the whole day was like that–full of happy surprises. Phone calls, birthday cards in the mail, email wishes, a visit from Peg (she didn’t know it was my birthday so that was a serendipity thing) and ended with my son, daughter-in-love and grandchildren taking me out for dinner and showering me with gifts. What a day! I think I’ll have another birthday today.

A milestone is a marker placed alongside a road at intervals of one mile to mark the distance traveled. A birthday certainly qualifies as a marker placed along the road of life at intervals of one year to mark the number of years traveled. When I got a call from my cousin Sue in Tulsa yesterday (she didn’t know it was my birthday either, so that was another serendipity moment) we did some looking back. We talked a bit about how life must have been at Etta when her mom, Aunt Alice, and my mom were girls. Etta was the beginning of the road of life for my mother and from that road, mine branched off.

So, at this milestone, I pause for a moment to catch my breath and look back at the road traveled. It’s a pretty long distance by now and I sincerely doubt that the road ahead will be nearly that long, but, like every road, it’s marked by milestones, not necessarily on my birthday. It’s good  to focus on all those bright moments, all the sunny spots along the way. Over the whole distance, in good times and bad, there has been and still is, love. God’s love, my family’s love. Those are the essentials to take on any journey.

As well as a place to pause and reflect, a milestone is also a good time to look ahead. And, I like what I see. Life is a wonderful gift. This is the first day of starting toward a brand new milestone on my own personal road. A person can’t walk forward with any amount of confidence if she keeps looking back, so I happily look forward to today, tomorrow, the next birthday and, God willing, many birthdays after that. However, I don’t think any birthday could be better than the one I had yesterday.