The Celebration of Life

I was born in 1997 on the 14th of May. My family never celebrated birthdays. We are part of a religion that shifts, and changes as we learn. So yes, we thought birthdays were a bad thing to celebrate. I never had a birthday cake or presents wrapped in colourful tissue paper, but that was fine; I never knew anything different. To me, it would be weird at a party if people were only giving me gifts. Where's the fun in that? I enjoy giving gifts as much as I do getting them.

There were some down sides to not keeping birthdays. My Grandma is of a different religion, and she already couldn't give her granddaughters gifts for X-mas. It was hard for her because she'd spend all the other common celebrations with my uncle, aunt, and cousins, but wasn't able to do that with us. No birthdays just topped the cake, so to speak.

As the years went by, my Grandma began doing little things for me and my sister on our birthdays. Most commonly she'd give us cards with kittens or flowers on the front, that stated we were growing into beautiful young ladies, and that she loved us dearly. Sometimes there would be ten or twenty dollars accompanying the pretty cards.

My Mom and Papa didn't see that the cards were any big concern. The main point of us not keeping birthdays, was not to make a big deal of it. Pretty cards and twenty dollars was not making a big deal, and it kept my grandma happy, so they didn't say anything to her about it.

As you might have already guessed, my family doesn't have a problem with keeping birthdays now. Why's that? Well, like I said, my family and I have a religion which changes as we learn.

We celebrated my Grandma's 80th with her. Though, it wasn't as simple as that. My uncle and aunt weren't happy with the date, which was a Sunday and was the original date of my Grandmother's birth. So why were they having a problem? Well, my aunt had to go back to work on the Monday, and it's about a four hour drive from my Grandma's back to her place. So you can kind of understand her concern. My Grandma really wanted to have her birthday on her birth date though.

So, my aunt blamed my Grandma for favouring my family over hers. You see, in my religion, Saturday is our day of rest, and we don't do our own pleasures, really, on that day. She accused my Grandma of only having her birthday on the Sunday for our sake- which would have been considerate of her if the date had landed on a Saturday. My Grandma isn't like that though, she's always been concerned about keeping things even, which is apparent when you look back and see her trying to do things for mine, and my sister's birthdays. Besides, like I mentioned, her birthday fell on the Sunday, not the Saturday.

We had it on the Sunday. My sister and I celebrated our Grandmother's birthday for the first time, and our aunt didn't come. Our uncle did though, and their daughter, too. My other cousin didn't come, but that was because he was in Vancouver. He made it up to my Grandma by sending the most sweetest, sincerest card. I don't remember what it all said, but my Grandma loved it. I gave her a home made card that was a word collage of her life. She liked that too.

After everything, it was a successful birthday. And my Grandma loved it.

It kind of left a bad taste in my mouth, though. I was happy that my Grandmother was happy, but at the same time I thought it was such a shame that my aunt couldn't see what was more important. At the end of the day, she chose 300 dollars over a chance to make my Grandma's year. I should also mention that we probably would have come to my Grandma's birthday even if we hadn't started keeping them ourselves. It's not that my aunt is a bad person, and I don't ever want to say anything bad about her, but I think I would like to learn from her mistake.

What my family does for birthdays now, is we have a nice family dinner. The member who's birthday it is gets to choose what the dinner is, and we even get cake, if we want it. If when I'm older I ever have kids of my own, I can't see myself doing more than just a dinner. I might give them something special, but it would be just that; special. Perhaps a hand sewn teddy bear when they turn five, maybe a coming of age ring at thirteen, or maybe a locket on a silver chain? It's hard to say, but it wouldn't be expected of their siblings to give them gifts, and I don't think that I'd get them presents every year, I'm not sure. Whatever it is, I don't think that birthdays should be about gifts, I think birthdays should be a family time, a time to love the person who has just lived another year, and a celebration of life.