Happy Birthday.. To ME

Well, lets face it. My history with Birthdays is not that great. In years past I have had pretty crappy birthdays mostly spent in the ER, bailing people out of jail, or missing someone. Some years it was even a mixture of the two. I never grew up getting extravagent parties, but that I will never look upon that as bad because my upbringing made me the person I am today. The last two years I have actually spent pretty quietly. Last year I was taking care of my Grandmother in Arizona, and the year before that I was living in Everett with my parents and if I remember correctly we just had a quiet dinner at home.

This year has been different.. this year snuck up on me in the simplest of ways.

My day started out awesome when I went to breakfast with three close freinds. It was great, and I am so thankful that I was able to celebrate with them. They all know that I have a bit of a dislike for my birthday, but they love birthdays - so we compromise and I don't put up a fight for them acknowleding it and they keep it low key. I fully expected for that to be the last of any birthday stuff this year.

Then, I came to work...

In my world I don't tell people when my birthday is, and that rule seems to apply extra in a workplace setting. When I left for work I had curled my hair because I decided that that little confidence boost that it gives me was by birthday present to myself and then I had made myself a smoothie as a birthday sweet treat. I fully expected to maybe have a few people comment on my good mood and I would just tell them that it was a good day to be extra happy. I got here though, and I came upstairs and was waiting off to the side of the desk while the previous shift finished with their guests, and my manager Jay came up behind me and wished me a happy birthday. A suprise in and of itself at first. A pleaseant one though. For some reason it mattered to me that he knew (even though I know he gets told by HR when it is. They even supply him with a birthday card) and, that he made it a point to say it to me. Everyone else at the front heard him of course and wished me happy birthday as well, and even though some of them had just found out about it, them saying it still mattered to me. About ten minutes later the bar tender comes around the corner with a birthday cake complete with candles and ice cream! Jay had bought me a small cake and when the cooks had learned who it was from they got a little excited and added their own little flair. It was so cool. the last Birthday cake that I can remember is the one that my best friend had made me right before my accident three years ago. The rest of the day was normal. I had a few people that are just stupid, and a few guests that even wished me a happy birthday. My friend Rose even drove all the way out to the village to get me from work. She gave me a pearl bracelet. I even think it might be real.

My birthday was great. What made it better was that it was subtle. In the past it has been pointed out to me that I do not like attention, or recognition. I think that that is wrong now. I like recognition just as much as the next girl, I just don't like to be the center. I would much rather someone be sneaky about it than make a big production out of it.

So , I am now a quarter of a century old, and I feel I have started it off right.

Utah

I have a freind.. a very good friend in fact, whom I have always made fun of for having a dislike for an entire state. Utah, although not of of the prettier states as far as I'm concerned, has never done anything bad to her I would say. I would say she could not like the people, not like the activities, the politics, or the individual things that personally happened to her, but she could not really hate an entire state. I am now eating my words. I hate this state ... I really do. I have lived here for a ew months now and am still thoroughly unimpressed by it as a whole unit. My point in telling you this is that I have learned that even in my own irrational and admittedly narrow opinion of this state I still recognize that some people really love it here. I can not fault them for that. I think that this world is severely lacking in its reserves of understanding and compassion.

Grandma Dying

I went to get Thai food with a group of friends last night and it came up that one of my favorite places to be is graveyards. You see I have a somewhat different outlook on death and dying than most do. Most recently I was in Arizona with my Grandma who was dying. I helped her do everything that she possibly needed and it was one of the best things I could have ever done. In the end we had her in hospice for a little while because there was three of us that were taking care of her and we all were miserably sick at the same time as well. She was only in there for about two days before passing, but the atmosphere at the hospice was something I have never experienced before. There was a sense of waiting, true, but on top of that was love and respect. There was no delusions as to what was happening to every person there, and when Grandma passed it was a relief from the pain that we could all see her experiencing. In the past one of my grandparents passing has had little to no effect on me since we were never really all that close to any of them.. geographically or otherwise. Since I was around and had been for a while when Grandma died I got to see the direct effect that she had on so many people. I watched one of my church leaders break down and cry in front of an entire congregation. So many people came up to me to tell me how she had been an inspiration to them, a good friend, someone that other people could go to for help and she would help as much as she possibly could. Her funeral is on Friday morning. In my religion these sorts of things are always more like inpromptu family reunions than anything else, and for once my entire family will be there. That in and of it self should be entertaining.
But this all brings up the question of what does death really mean to us, as human beings? For me, I am LDS and basically it is just a step in our eternal progression. We belive in life after death, in becoming more than we are now, in learning everything that we can here and re-applying it in our future life. But what do we want to be remembered for? I have at least two grandparents that I have been old enought to recognize the impact that they made on the world, and that I should be proud to be one who inheritade that legacy.