You say it’s your birthday
It’s my birthday too, yeah…
— “Birthday” by The Beatles (1968)
All I can recall about my 69th birthday is that Lee was dying and that she would be dead a few days later.
June 27th will mark my 70th birthday. It is supposed to be a milestone birthday. Among royalty it is sometimes known as the platinum jubilee. For example, Queen Elizabeth’s platinum jubilee of her ascension to the British throne is scheduled to occur in 2022. If she is still alive then, I am sure there will be a great celebration. However, if I am honest about it, I am in no mood to celebrate my platinum jubilee birthday, or, as far as I can tell today, every future birthday which I may have the good fortune to observe.
The fact is, milestone or no, my birthday falls too near in time to Lee’s final illness and death to ever again be much cause for celebration. My approaching 70th birthday finds me thinking less about myself and more about her.
Birthdays are supposed to be celebratory occasions. We have only one life in this place, and I suppose it is worth remembering exactly when it all started. My life began on my mother’s birthday—June 27th. She used to remind me that she squeezed me out just before the stroke of midnight, else my birthday would have been June 28th. She would invariably find and give me a birthday card “for the two of us.”
As I look back, however, there are precious few birthdays that really stand out to me. Of course, there was my 7th birthday, which coincided with the 7th birthday of my grammar school classmate and pal, Peter, whose claim to fame at that time was having lost a finger in an accident involving an escalator. The circumstance surrounding his accident were never made clear. All I can think to say now is, “stupid kid!”
No one intentionally planned dueling birthday parties, but since Peter and I were grammar school classmates it was inevitable that our respective 2d grade guest lists overlapped some. Our moms quite reasonably had mutually agreed to leave enough space on this special day so that the guests could walk the short distance from one party to the next but squabbled about whose party should have precedence in time. Pete and I cared not a whit since, being both a birthday boy and a birthday guest, we were each bound to get at least two pieces of cake and two scoops of ice cream, regardless whose party ended up getting the top billing.
The only other birthday that still jumps to mind is my 40th, another supposed milestone occasion. I recall that Lee was at my party, but we were still just friends. Very soon our relationship was destined to deepen and change, though we never stopped being friends.
At this time in my life, I still enjoyed performing magic tricks. As we magicians are fond of saying, it is fun to be fooled! I recall getting several magic-related items as gifts, including a splendid volume by Mark Wilson, who is widely credited as the first “television” magician. Meanwhile I was content to keep my act modest, sticking mainly to simple tabletop tricks using cards, coins, cups, and ropes as my props.
My most spectacular and memorable effect did not take place for several more years when, while on a Halloween weekend camping getaway with a group of our friends, I succeeded in making Lee “disappear”. If only I possessed the magic that would make her reappear, but I do not. I accept the reality that Lee cannot physically be present to share in my 70th birthday though she remains with me indelibly in spirit. Indeed, how could things possibly be otherwise?
And in accepting the reality, I am very glad today that Robyn will be joining me this coming Saturday for dinner at my favorite Italian restaurant. And I am also pleased about the fact that Sunday my friends have decided we ought to share a meal together in honor of my actual birthday. I am looking forward to this opportunity to spend a few hours in their company once again, to break bread and raise the glasses, to reminisce, to trade the familiar stories, to see my friends smiling and to hear welcome laughter. By now they have all heard me speak about Robyn, but I do not think Sunday is the appropriate occasion to introduce her to so many new people all at once. This would not be fair to Robyn.
Indifferent time inexorably moves forward, and as a living being I am compelled to move forward with it. Come Monday, yet another birthday will have come and gone for me. I trust the attendant festivities will prove to have been pleasant diversions, but hardly causes for celebration given current circumstances.
In short, I will be very glad to see my first year as a widower finally come to its end. Only one more week to go now.