Happy Birthday to Me

Everyone celebrates my birthday.  I was born on St. Patrick’s Day.   We had a party here at the retirement home where I live, with a bagpiper decked out in kilts and the whole regalia, blowing the pipes so loud even the dear, deaf old men could hear.  After blasting away at “Danny Boy” and a couple of other typical Irish tunes, the piper committed heresy and played “Scotland the Brave.”  Well, it is one of the best musical numbers for the bagpipes. 

Our new management did not know it was my birthday, so I did not receive any recognition at that party.  Neither my son David nor my daughter Martha could come this year, so I gave myself a party.  I put invitations on 13 doors of other residents.  Twelve came; I found chairs for all of them, filling the living room of my little apartment.  

My brother Don and his wife Mary helped serve cake and lemonade.  The chocolate cake with pale green frosting was delicious, although I ordered it from Tom Thumb through a young woman who did not speak English, and the shamrock decorations looked most peculiar. 

To complete my day, Martha and David both called to wish their old Mom, “Happy Birthday.”  David also sent a box of chocolates.  I don’t want any more “stuff.”  As the New Yorker cartoon said, “I have enough crap to last me the rest of my life.”

All in all, not a big celebration, as we had for my 80th, but a happy day.

I treasure birthday cards.  Besides the ones from Montclair friends, other cards came in the mail.  All lifted my spirits. 

Cards picturing cats (in honor of Charlie) came Barbara and Marjorie, friends since college more than 60 years ago, and from Lois, my Garland friend who found time to bring me a card, although she was moving that day.  Martha sent a picture of a big, white cat, very like Charlie.

My husband John Durkalski died 21 years ago, yet I still receive a birthday card every year from his sisters in Pittsburgh.  I also received cards and messages from Sally, my best friend since high school, who lives on a farm near Decatur, and from Emmy, my dear, dear friend from college, who recently moved to Round Rock, and from Joanie Woodruff, my writer friend, from Mountainair, New Mexico.  Gertrude called from New York and Doris from Albuquerque.  How many old ladies can claim five “best” friends like these?

It was a special thrill to receive a card and note from my 94-year-old cousin, Pat Lyle, who lives in a retirement home in Rapid City, South Dakota.  When I was a child, my grandmother was guardian of Pat and her sisters, Viv and Gee (Georgie Sue). My mother took me and my brother to their house  every day.  I knew Pat from my earliest memories  until she went away to college at Texas Tech.  Through the years we almost lost touch, but now we are the only ones left from those daily gatherings around the kitchen table on Lipscomb Street in Fort Worth.   Even the house is gone, a parking lot for the Association for the Deaf. 

I am 84 years old.  I have to go to dialysis three days a week.   But I am alive and thrilled to be remembered by all these good friends.  Life is wonderful.