On the surface, my
64th birthday is just another day, beginning with a monthly meeting
with my chaplain peers. Of all days, it
is my turn to present a case study for peer review. I’ve been dreading it for months—it’s meant
to be a learning tool to keep us chaplains on our toes, but sometimes it seems more like
Monday morning quarterbacking. In any
event, I get through the verbatim account of a visit with a patient. I am relieved when the criticism I've been expecting (and think I deserve) is not forthcoming from my supportive colleagues. Gift #1.
After the meeting, I drive to the East side of town to meet
with the daughter of a dear friend-Elizabeth- who unexpectedly passed away in
June. Between getting married and changing careers, I
had lost touch with my old friend, kept meaning to call her, thinking that I
had all the time in the world. Turns
out, I didn’t. A couple of weeks ago, I officiated at Elizabeth’s memorial
service, a bittersweet honor which was far more difficult than I had expected. After the service, her daughter Lee asked
if I might want some of her mom’s things as a keepsake. So this morning, I find Lee undergoing the
heartbreaking task of dismantling Elizabeth’s home.
She is frantically trying to reduce her mom’s life to a few boxes that
can be transported back to her home in Oregon. I find many gifts that I have given Elizabeth
over the years-souvenirs from my travels—a tiny bejeweled elephant from India,
a miniature painting from Ecuador, a gold bracelet I gave her for her birthday.
I am painfully reminded how close we once were. We celebrated birthdays and holidays
together. We spent long evenings talking
about important stuff—the meaning and purpose of life, our spiritual beliefs. A few times, she accompanied me to the Bar D (my
property in the mountains) for a weekend of luxury camping in the airstream. I feel like a vulture pawing through her life,
but Lee is intent on giving me as much stuff as I can fit in the trunk of my
car. I drive away crying-- the taste of
regret bitter in my throat. Regret that
I didn’t spend more time with my friend.
Regret that I didn’t even know she was sick until I got a phone call
from a mutual friend telling me that she was in the hospital—my own
hospital, where I work as a chaplain. Even
after paying her a couple of visits and seeing how sick she was, I didn’t
really think she would die. With all of
my clinical experience, apparently I am still buying into the pretty little
fairy tale that says our dearest friends are supposed to live forever. The lesson here is obvious. Gift #2
While I’m trying to find room for Elizabeth’s things in my
own home, the UPS man unceremoniously dumps a package on the doorstep. It is from my step-daughter Dawn. I am touched she remembers my birthday until I find out that my ex-husband is moving out of the home we briefly shared almost thirty years ago. Somehow Dawn got
roped into cleaning out the attic and found artifacts from my past stashed away
in a trunk. The fact that the package has arrived on my birthday is mere co-incidence....or is it? The package contains an eclectic collection of memories—a high
school yearbook, an issue of the underground newspaper I wrote for in college, assignments
for a creative writing class, an Aspen Times article featuring myself and a wet behind the ears reporter--we were Channel 7’s West Slope bureau team
back in the late 70’s. I am suddenly
reunited with my young tender self—the self that doubted herself and yearned
for something unattainable. She was passionate,
impetuous, and conflicted. Here she is,
on my dining room table, a silly adolescent recalled in hastily written year book entries by long forgotten friends, "remember Latin One when a certain girl caused another certain girl to topple over her desk?"; here is the disaffected college student, testing out newly formed ideas and opinions on mimeographed and type-written leafs of yellowed paper, here is the budding writer, and the veteran photo journalist, jauntily wielding a cumbersome 16mm camera smiling
back at me from a faded photograph. How I love all of her. Gift #3
Later that afternoon, after suffering through yet another
meeting, my husband whisks me away to one of our favorite restaurants on 32nd
Avenue. Over gnocchi in truffle cream
sauce, Frank listens sympathetically as I try to process the strange
day I’ve had. I know there’s a theme to it all, but I can’t quite grasp it. After dinner, he offers to drop me off at
home and drive to a bakery on the other side of town to procure a slice of my
favorite chocolate cake. I end the day
relaxing on the couch, greedily licking the delicious frosting from my
fingers-- grateful for my best friend and husband who is giving me a
vigorous foot rub. Gift #4
My 64th birthday has turned out to be an
extraordinary day after all. So maybe it hasn’t been the day of leisure that I would have
chosen, but for sure, it’s been full of surprises. I’ve
gotten a perspective on how far I’ve traveled from the gangly insecure
teenager to rebellious young adult to a somewhat wiser, less insecure elder. I’ve been reminded that that no matter how
many years I’ve walked this planet there is no end to the lessons
I came here to learn. When it comes to regrets, all I can do is keep the self-flagellation to a minimum and try a little harder to nurture those precious connections with my loved ones.
I've come to believe that everything in life happens for us rather than to us. Heartache and failure as well as success are all part of the whole glorious package meant to help us grow and evolve. Most of all, I’m grateful for all of the
people and experiences that have gotten me here and I've gotta say, here is pretty great.
