A New Year’s Birthday Wish

Here’s a nosey and random question for you: Do you read obituaries? If you do, what part is of the most interest to you? The answers likely tell much about your age and stage of life.

As a child and teenager, you ignore them. Obits are for old people, and the only old people you care about are Memaw and Peepaw. As a young adult, perhaps you scan them every once in a while, just to see if the list of survivors contains a name that you recognize, maybe somebody you know. As you transition to middle age, you begin to read them more thoroughly, examining the professions and accomplishments of the deceased. In a way, it helps you to put the path of your own life into some sort of perspective.

But in retirement, your attention is drawn immediately to one particular statistic. Age. The first thing I want to know about someone who has passed away is how long they lived. Was it a tragic loss of young life? Were they cut down in the prime of middle age? Or did they have a long and prosperous run? It’s more than just curiosity. It kind of gives you a running average of what you might expect for yourself.

I broach this somewhat morbid subject because I am staring another birthday in the face. I was born in early January, so every time the calendar folds over to a new year, I find myself greeting it with emotions that are mixed. I am profoundly grateful to the Good Lord for blessing me with another year in the beautiful world He has created, and the blessings He has bestowed. But as your birthday comes calling, you are also forced to acknowledge that the number has clicked up another notch, and you are left to ponder the impossibility of it all.

That number. There’s no way you can be that number. You don’t feel as though you are that number. You don’t think of yourself as that number. You look in the mirror. You try to be objective. You’re thinking by golly, honestly, I really don’t look like that number! The malaise is temporary. In a few days, you’ll forget about the number, and you won’t think about it for months. About twelve months. Until the next birthday looms.

Your spouse asks you what you want for your birthday. You think, think, think. Nothing comes to mind. Nothing! That was never a problem when you were younger. There was always something you needed, a gadget you always wanted, a guilty pleasure you coveted. Now you look around at all the stuff your life has accumulated, and you’re more concerned with how you’re going to get rid of some of the clutter, rather than receiving more of it.

There’s an old joke that goes “Retirement is great! Every morning, I get up and read the obituaries, and if my name isn’t in them, I get dressed.”

There is some truth to that. I never want to take birthdays for granted. I never want to treat a day of life as though it is something I am entitled to. All the clichés come back to me. Age is just a number. You’re only as old as you feel. You’re not getting older, you’re getting better. Seventy is the new fifty. Having a birthday is better than the alternative, and so on. They’re all designed to make you feel better about that number ticking up another notch. And I will. Just need a few days.

By the way, I figured out what I really want for the occasion. I want you to have a great new year, and my prayer is that it’s a year in which you get to have a birthday too.