I finished my work for the day,
tucked away my computer, and put up the footrest of my recliner with a sigh. Just
as I was getting all nice and dozey, a thought bounced into my head that made
me sit up straight. Tomorrow was my eldest son's birthday . . . and he was
probably expecting me to actually DO something about that!
Not that his expectations would
be very high. I've never been one of those moms who plan birthday parties with balloons
and a clown named Bobo and a race car birthday cake. My kids have learned
It's not that I don't care about
my children. I want them to have a happy day and all. It's just that . . . really,
when it comes right down to it, a birthday is just a day.
That realization is a step on
the passage to adulthood, I think. At some point you become aware that this
day, the one that for so many years felt like Something Truly Special, is no
different than the one before or after it. You still have to go to work and
make the bed. It's just a day.
I didn't blow up balloons for
Isaac. The poor kid didn't get a fancy meal, and his cake-substitute brownies
weren't even from scratch.
But when my birthday boy padded
into the not-decorated kitchen that morning with rumpled hair and a sleepy
grin, I looked at him and thought, on this day that was his day, of all that he
had been, and all that he would be.
I saw again the little boy with
big brown eyes who used to stand peeking over the edge of my bed, waiting
for me to wake up. I saw the first grader who was afraid he would get sucked up
by the vacuum cleaner or whirled down the bathtub drain, the knob-kneed slugger taking a tighter grip on his Little League bat.
I saw in this talling, slightly
goofy high schooler the young man who will someday walk me down the aisle at
his own wedding. The man who will cradle my grandchildren in his arms, who will
hold my hand in the nursing home.
Yes. Isaac's birthday was just a
day. A day for me. A day to remember how much I love this kid. A day to be
thankful for how much he loves me.
My son's birthday is not about the day. It's
about the boy.
--------
Christmas is coming, as it seems
to do every year. You want to know something? Sometimes - please don't tell
anyone, because they might not understand - sometimes I'm just not in the mood
for it.
It's just so much. Such a big
holiday, with so many expectations attached. Expectations that I can't possibly
meet. The gifts, the tree, the
trimmings, the travel; it's all more than I have the time or energy to think
about.
And when I do think about it, it
sometimes strikes me that it's just plain silly. So much planning and
preparation for the sake of one day, one day that isn't even all that special,
really. Yes, it's a birthday. But no matter how much you fluff it up, a
birthday is just a day.
Christmas is, indeed, just a
day. A day to remember a rough foodbox cradle, and a God who was big enough to
make Himself small enough to fit in it. A day to look back at a Boy who followed
in His father's footsteps, learned a carpenter's trade, walked as one of us. A
day to look forward to the hill, and the cross, and the stone rolled away, and
a life laid down and picked up again in the same way it began: full of the
deepest, most un-understandable love.
I'm sure we'll get some
decorations up in the house soon, and maybe I'll even find time to make my
mom's favorite candy cane cookies. But what I'd really like this Christmas is to let it be just a day. A day to close my eyes and take a minute with my Savior. To
remember how much I need Him. To be thankful for how much He loves me.
Christmas, with all its fluff
and frippery, isn't about the day.
It's about the Boy.First published in The Alpena News, December 13, 2014
