How does one define a year? Most usual one is to say the number of days its made of, some tend to think of it as a handy unit to track their personal growth, mortgage remainder and all kinds of other things. But it changes if one's to look at years of their life from one birthday to next, doesn't it? New year's day seems to be a usual suspect for people rushing to make resolutions whereas birth day ushers into a hall of wholesome memories. Friends, family and cake, is there anything better than that?
Dorothy Suckling, my grandmother, was born in July 1923. A year that saw the end of Ottoman empire and birth of the Hollywood sign, Walt Disney and Insulin. She arrived right at the heart of a world going through spiraling change and it hasn't stopped to amaze her to this day. At 99, gran has witnessed moon landings, the birth of internet and the Gangnam style craze. Ahh the memories one would gather from a life well lived and that long! She's remarkably good still at pulling stories from her colourful life.
Interestingly, she is way better at remembering things from her youth than, say last year. Science is pretty clear on the waning of cognitive abilities as we stack decades of life behind us but I want to have my belief intact that a life full of laughter with people we love is probably a life better remembered. That's what we did last week as we celebrated her going around the sun for 99th time. Knowing gran's love of flowers, I crafted a Happy 99th Birthday card adorned with flowers. She was overjoyed seeing the card and kept it in her lap for most of the time we were there. Some of my cousins were there too, whom I hadn't seen in years and they understandably didn't know anything about my artistic endeavours. A blend of pleasant shock and surprise went around the room when they learned that I had made it. Someone asked that it was pretty neat I managed to find a 99th birthday card as cards usually seem to celebrate 'milestones'. I put that in quotes as I've always found it odd that we seem to ascribe milestone status to a selective digits when it comes to birthdays, anniversaries and such. To me, having lived another year of earth flying through the big yonder as we experience love, sadness, heartbreaks and rekindled relationships, is a milestone. What if you found your passion at 33 or fell in love madly than ever before at 47? Life doesn't wait for a round figure to present us with wonderful moments. Life just throws them our way that's the food for thought in this post. Celebrate life with the people you love and share your journey with them every year, have a coffee with a friend you haven't on Tuesday and gift that champagne to your mother on her 83rd birthday instead of waiting for her to turn 90. Not everyone makes it to big round digits, celebrate what's worth celebrating!
(A special thanks to my husband for being my editor for this blog post :))
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