Already I’ve received lots of Happy Birthday wishes, a gift from my walking partner that included some yummy chocolate chip punkin bread (breakfast), and am looking forward to a great dinner today with John and cake and ice cream with the rest of the family on Saturday evening when we’re all available. Elder son has made his annual call with a wonderful, jazzy rendition of the birthday song…I really need to record him because I love his version.
Looking back, it’s amazing (at least to me) to see from whence I came and what I’ve lived that has brought me to this particular birthday. I was born in the hills of Tennessee in a cabin/shack that had no running water or electricity. My mother labored in front of the fireplace because it was the warmest place in the cabin. My birth certificate indicates she actually had a doctor present and I wish I could ask her about that now since I’m sure most deliveries were aided by the local midwife or a family member, in this case my grandmother. Swaddled, I was taken and put into bed with my mother’s brother. He was told, “Don’t roll over on the baby.” and family lore says he was my incubator because it was the warmest place available.
There are a few pictures of me, my mom and grandmother from the first year of my life back in that Tennessee cove. The shack looks like a shack, my mom looks terribly young, as does my grandma, and it’s obvious they were taken some where in the country. When I was about a year old, my mom and grandma left there and took a train to Idaho to join two of my mother’s brothers. I don’t remember a single thing about the trip. In fact my first memory (which I’ve written about before) was meeting my dad.
We lived first in a shack that must have been similar to the one in Tennessee. The second place was more of a home and I remember my dad installing a real bathroom with a tub, toilet and sink. This really brought us up in the world. After about seven years, my parents went to visit my dad’s family in Seattle Washington. Only mom returned and that was to get us all ready to move again.
My mom had to sell the house and what’s amazing about that is she was only selling the house, not the land. The mining company owned all the land. Of course I didn’t know that then, but many years later I heard from the next door neighbor there that the house had sold again for $5,000. My husband and I had just paid $24,000 for the house we still live in and I told him then we had bought in the wrong place.
Mom did sell the house, got us all packed up and moved us to join daddy in Seattle. We first lived with dad’s aunt and uncle because the house the folks purchased hadn’t closed. Eventually, we moved into an old house that included an additional two city lots that contained grapes, fruit trees, berries, and a garden. It was located in Fremont which is now the Center of the Universe (according to some people). Then, it was the wrong side of the railroad tracks so to speak and which became ever more clear socially as I grew up.
Even so, it was a great neighborhood where everyone knew everyone else. My mother convinced me early on that I could not lie. Grown I realized that one of the neighbors had tattled on whatever it was I did that I wasn’t supposed to do; but mom was so good with her inquisition I became convinced my eyes had to light up and flash the words, “LIE, LIE, LIE. Even now at 69, it’s hard for me to lie because I’m sure the person to whom I’m lying (even on the phone) can tell I’m lying.
I lived there with my family with only one change for about 12 years. That change was my grandmother moving to California to live with one of her sons. She came back years later, her sons having passed on, but her departure and absence was a real blow when she’d always been a part of my life…the first person to wrap and hold me at my birth, as well as share every single day since until she left.
Shortly after turning 19, I had to find an apartment because my parents were selling our home. Amazingly, they sold it for triple what they paid and thought it was a great deal, but imagine what they’d get now for three lots in the Center of the Universe. A year later I married John, we moved from my apartment to a little house in Ballard and a couple years later to the house in which we currently reside.
During all these years, I’ve gained and lost family members, made and lost friends, had a long career I enjoyed, raised two children, welcomed grandchildren, created memories that bring me both intense joy and sorrow, seen some parts of the world I never expected to visit, and lived a life which looked at today seems incredibly long and extremely full while also seeming far too short and not as full as it will one day be. At the same time, I don’t feel as though I am 69 years old.
My earliest mental picture of myself at 69 was of a stooped and feeble woman who talked in a raspy voice and appeared to be very very old. I do not meet my own early mental criteria. I feel pretty much as I felt in what would be termed my youth I guess. I feel as though I still have places to go, things to do, people to see, experiences not yet experienced. So, while I celebrate this birthday I do so with the realization that while my journey through life has perhaps slowed down a bit, going forward more birthdays, people, places, things and experiences await.
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