You Are Special Today 

By TAD BARTIMUS

Long after I was an adult my mother gave me a red ceramic dinner plate decorated with white flowers and the words "You Are Special Today" on the rim.

"Some day," she said, putting her hands over mine as I held the plate, "I won't be here to cook your favorite steak with red sauce or pick out the perfect sweater or decorate a cake."

Tears welled up in my eyes and I started to protest.

"No, no, don't," she said, squeezing my hands tighter. "It's a fact of life. I'm giving you this so that when I'm not here to celebrate your life, you will."

I couldn't imagine such a time, so I put the pretty plate back in its box and forgot about it.

Life being what it is, the day came when Mother no longer woke me up at 6 a.m., singing "Happy Birthday to YOUUUUUUU!!" down the phone line. There were no more boxes so covered with Scotch tape they took a knife AND scissors, and once even a little hacksaw, to get open. Worse, there was no longer a sense of being special on a special day.

Birthdays with zeroes were marked by generous friends who brought a cake or with a restaurant dessert with a candle in it. On these occasions I felt artificial and off-key, as though I was forcing myself to act festive. In the non-zero years there were thoughtful cards, a phone call or two from distant friends and a vague feeling of melancholy. 

What did it matter? Aren't birthdays for children who give themselves up to spontaneity and laughter, to ripping into presents with the glee of entitlement? "Hey, look at me! It's MY birthday! I get to do what I want because today I’M the special one!"

We tell ourselves that when we reach a certain age it's unseemly to call attention to the attrition of our bodies and minds, to take an hour unwrapping gifts, to be toasted with fizzy drinks, to keep all the loot and be glad of it. The older we get the more we're expected to behave with decorum and restraint, to act with generosity: "Here, take it, take it, go on, I don't need it." After 21, except for those zero years, we treat our special date as if it's just another day.

This year, unpacking and spreading out in a place that, most of the time, feels like home, I came across the red plate. As I picked it up I felt my mothers hands once again on mine, heard her voice give me permission, through the plate, to celebrate my own life.

This year I honored her by honoring myself. I bought a dress that looked like one she'd pick out. "Would you like this gift-wrapped?" the clerk asked. "Yes, please," I said, "it's for someone special."

Mother's fingertips were always perfectly filed and painted, so I treated my hangnails to a rare manicure. On a friend's dare I trespassed over a fence and climbed down a cliff to swim in a deserted pool. I took a nap and read a novel in two sittings. I thought hard about why I was celebrating.

We're always going to have bad days. People we love will die. We'll be humbled by what we don't know. We'll cope with life's vagaries and struggle on, putting one wingtip in front of the other. So if the bad days are inevitable, why not set aside some good ones to balance them out?

Conjure up the faces of friends and relatives we'll never see again, people who won't get another Christmas, another payday, another chance. Their rat race is run. We get to savor another sunrise, endure another tax season, hug another child. We're the lucky ones.

We need to celebrate every birthday because we're still here.

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