VIEW FROM THE PEW
It put smiles on the faces of a lot of us uninvolved observers when a horn-honking horde in decorated cars did a drive-by birthday celebration at a neighborhood home. It raises the spirits, even for strangers, to witness happiness in a surprised honoree, exuberant spirits (as long as fireworks are not involved), and a demonstration of love that took a lot of planning and effort.
Try not to focus on the necessity behind this newish addition to our culture and just enjoy a little public sharing of a family experience like the good old days of singing along in a restaurant when the gang at the next table sang “Happy Birthday.”
Hearing about a zooming version of a family birthday party planned for this week tugs at my heartstrings. Everyone knows that the strong man, head of the household, stalwart husband, son, dad and grandpa will not be here for another birthday. Everyone wants a chance to say “I love you” and see him smile. They want to have a happy highlight after his months of a wrenching battle against cancer.
Thinking about the all-in energy of folks that make a celebration happen in the midst of dire chapters of deteriorating health, or at a time of distress over changes and challenges in life … well, there’s no other description than this overused and abused word: awesome.
Meanwhile, happening in another family close to my heart, is the more typical subdued spin on the special day. It’s another birthday this week. The celebrant is of an age that leads a loving child to see every birthday as a milestone worth a party. But others balked at the idea for various reasons ranging from COVID-caution through aversion to command performances.
“I love parties. If I had my druthers, I would like a small dinner party with the chance to talk meaningfully with people,” said the matriarch Dee Smyser. She does not expect the family to repeat her 90th birthday bash from pre-COVID days. “It was fun. I saw people from all phases of my life,” she said. A former newspaper reporter and Hawaii Visitors Bureau staffer, she and her late husband Bud Smyser, a newspaper editor and columnist, hosted many a party.
Not a one-day deal
She says a birthday shouldn’t be a one-day deal. She treasures phone calls all year from family and friends, especially distant grandchildren, and their snail-mail cards and notes are on display. But she has little love for “emotionless” emails and texts when “you can’t hear the tone of voice, don’t have the give and take of conversation.” She quotes from a card by an anonymous author tucked into her calendar which says there is “nothing like a hand on the shoulder or a pat on the back.”
I think her viewpoint echoes the feeling of many, many people. Remember my day … but then don’t forget me for the rest of the year. Never mind the wrapped gift; talk to me and unwrap your experiences and thoughts in a cozy conversation.
It is certainly the view shared by me and another member of my family whose recent birthday celebrations were about as lowkey as it can get. We shared some laughs and a toast at the kitchen table, were thrilled by family phone calls, but talked ourselves into postponing the dinner in a restaurant for a later date. Truthfully, there’s not some grand gift that would knock our socks off; we scoff at the commercial sales pitches about expensive bling and mock the excessive flowery language of greeting cards. Nothing can match someone’s own words, a personal anecdote or shared memory, a bit of handmade craft or art or cooking.
We honor our mutual wishes not to notify the neighbors lest they make a fuss; I think that’s our heritage from modest parents and our childhood in another era. A few decades ago, birthdays just were not a big deal for us common folk. A cake would likely be baked, but being born close to Christmas meant mine would likely be delayed until a later date: “there’s just so many cookies and sweets” already on hand for the Bethlehem birthday celebration that was our focus.
I reflected on birthdays last month in part because January was celebrated as Kalaupapa month in Hawaii. Weekly updates by Ka Ohana O Kalaupapa singled out special events memorializing the history of the Molokai peninsula where leprosy patients were quarantined from 1866 until the quarantine was ended in 1969. The Kalaupapa ohana of patients, their families and descendants and supporters plans a memorial that will contain the names of the 8,000 people who lived out their lives there.
The Ohana spotlighted stories about Kalaupapa inhabitants and the people who helped and worked with them for that century of banishment including the birthdays of Jozef de Veuster in Belgium on Jan. 3, 1840, and Barbara Koob in Germany on Jan. 23, 1838.
The Catholic Church honored those two of the earliest helpers by declaring them saints, better known as Father Damien de Veuster and Mother Marianne Cope.
Unlike most saints’ days
Seeing those birth dates documented reminded me of a bit of miscellaneous intelligence lingering in my brain after years of writing about the journeys to canonization for the Sacred Hearts priest and the Franciscan nun. Both are remembered in the church liturgical calendar but unlike most saints’ feast days we mark every year, it is not the date of death that is remembered. St. Marianne’s memorial is celebrated on her birthday. St. Damien is celebrated on May 10, the date in 1873 when he stepped foot in Kalaupapa to begin serving there until his death on April 15, 1889.
It took the equivalent of “an act of Congress” to change the feast day from death day. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops changed it for the American liturgical calendar in 1999 at the request of then Honolulu Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo. The Vatican declined the change but okayed it a year later at the American bishops’ request. After the 2009 canonization, the Congregation for Divine Worship at the Vatican answered a request by Bishop Larry Silva and elevated May 10 from an “optional” to an “obligatory” memorial day in Hawaii. There’s a practical reason behind getting away from the April date. The church does not use the special saint’s day liturgies during Lent and April 15 is likely to be during Lent.
If it seems kind of grim and not celebratory at all to remember saints on their day of death, there’s actually a reason for that. The first people to be designated Catholic saints were martyrs murdered because of their faith, so death was celebrated as their entry into eternal life of heaven.
And truthfully, down through the ages, the birth dates of people were often unknown or obscure by the time they lived out a life deemed worthy of sainthood.
Borrowed traditions
Wow, this talk of birthdays got me off on an unplanned trajectory.
I just happened to read a story in The Atlantic magazine in November that reassured me that I’m not an oddball for being blase about my birthday. Writer Joe Pinsker brought a light touch to a piece about the history of celebrating birthdays. There are records of Egyptian pharaohs being honored in ancient times, and birthday celebrations for powerful rulers or wealthy upper classes in various cultures. “Birthdays were for rich people or national heroes. Americans celebrated George Washington’s birthday, for instance, but for everyone else it was just another day,” he wrote.
He quoted scholars who say it was the era of industrialization in the mid-1800s that shifted much in western culture, including the way people marked the passage of time. People had to pay heed to arriving at work or school on time; educational and medical fields began measuring people by age, health and development and individuals began to measure their own lives, including marking birthdays.
In the 20th century, celebrating birthdays got into full swing with a big nudge from capitalism. What a grand idea to create a market for goods, encourage a tradition that calls for spending again each year. People heard about and borrowed traditions and rituals from other ethnic groups.
There were religious people who saw celebrating yourself as a way to turn away from God. Some Christian and other sects still shun birthday observance.
Speaking of which, I chanced upon some passing Google guru making a point that the Bible has virtually no mention of birthdays. On the upbeat, there is the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ birth. On the downbeat, there is the grisly Gospel account of the murderous birthday of King Herod Antipas of Judea, who was charmed by his stepdaughter Salome and granted her request for the head of John the Baptist.
Okay, back to the modern era and away from the palace soap opera. I do like to bake and that’s my version of a birthday gift. I’m not sure our mainland family is being honest with me about the state of the banana bread or orange cookies delivered by the post office days after they left the oven, but they totally get the love that sent them. My friend Dee with her legendary sweet tooth makes it easy to please. My sister here with not-so-much love of sweets finds baking powder biscuits a winner. The kids next door and I have a tradition: I bake the cake for a family birthday now and then; they smear on the frosting and shovel on the sprinkles.
So, speaking of sweets, ‘tis the month to celebrate St. Valentine, so go ahead and treat yourself, even if it’s not a birthday. As The Atlantic writer Joe Pinsker concluded, in his chronicle about birthdays, “cultural expectations have loosened around when and whether people should reach milestones. So on your next birthday, as a gift to yourself, kick back with a nice big bowl of fruit, don’t look at the clock and take the day off from neurotically comparing yourself with everyone else.” I think I’d substitute a bowl of buttered popcorn.
As a birthday postscript, let me tell you that I just got a letter from Hawaii Foodbank telling me that a good friend on the mainland had made a donation in my name. Best birthday idea ever. What a wonderful tradition to start. I’m all in.