birthday strangeness

Today is Ninesh's birthday.  Presents wrapped, candle with cake ready.... and I am thinking about how strange it is, that everyone has certain dates that are special just to them.  Your birthday, the birthdays of your children, the date you got your first big break, your wedding anniversary ( if you remember it! ), the date you left home,  bought your first car.  We each of us have special days that shape our years and our lives.  What's strange, is that anyone you walk past on those days, has no idea that they are special. To you it is, in some small way, momentous, to them it is just another day. I don't know why this suddenly seems strange.  We spend our lives walking past people we know nothing about. These dates are just one more thing we don't have in common with them.  But I can't help wishing that there was some code, some piece of clothing you could wear, a certain smile, that would tell everyone else this is a special day for you.  And maybe, just maybe, they would come and shake your hand or wish you well or share a smile.

Today though, the 14th November, is strange in it's specialness.  It is not just Ninesh's birthday.  It is the birthday of our friends adopted daughter,  long awaited and much loved.  I will never forget the day my friend came round, after years of emotional roller-coasting, to tell me that they had met the two girls who were to become their daughters.  They had met the oldest one, 11 today, first.  My friend told me how she and her husband walked up the garden  path  that day . Looking up, they saw a little girl, all curly hair and smiles waiting for them at the front door.  " Who's that?" they heard her ask her foster carer. " They're your mummy and daddy," said the foster carer.   And my friend turned to me, smiling too, and said " That's what we are."

And then there is the sadness because Ninesh shares his birthday with someone else too.  A friend who we didn't know for long enough and who is never really faraway.  I hope the flowers in the garden that is planted on her grave are flowering today.

Happy birthday to Ninesh, Ceylan and to a smiling girl with curly hair who has found her mum and dad.