In the past two months, I attended two funerals. The first was that of a good friend and the second for a relative by marriage. I’m grateful to have had them in my life. I miss them both, and I’m sad that they won’t be with us to celebrate more birthdays.

Those out there who dread getting older, don’t. Growing older beats the alternative of not growing older. Better to be ancient than absent. To that end, my hope is to live to a very ripe old age. Since only the good die young, my chances of hanging in there for at least a century are excellent.

I love birthdays. I’m grateful for every birthday I celebrate because I’m still around to see more, learn more, experience more, and enjoy more of life with my family and friends. Today is my [not saying which one] birthday. Cake, ice cream and presents, yay! It doesn’t get much better than that. Except maybe for Christmas, which is a birthday too, come to think of it, just not mine—but I digress.

There are two birthdays I’ll never forget, my sixteenth and my twenty-fourth.

I was a tomboy in my youth. I’m certain my mother dreaded the approach of my sixteenth birthday. I showed little if any interest in dating boys as yet. In her infinite wisdom, my mom conspired with all our female relatives and my high school best friend. Those schemers planned a surprise party for me. They invited all my gal pals. And boys. They invited boys. (Now that was a bigger surprise than the party.) My gal pals pleaded guilty to it. There were other hurdles for the plotters to overcome. For example, I had skirts and blouses that I wore to school, but my tomboy wardrobe was short on party dresses. They numbered zero. One of my aunts managed to eliminate that deficiency. She brought one of her older daughter’s party dresses and matching pair of pumps for me to wear—my very first encounter with high-heeled shoes. After all these years, my strongest recollection of that surprise party was that it quickly became an exercise in concentration. I had to concentrate on not falling off the pumps and breaking my ankles. O joy.

By age twenty-four, I was well conversant with dating and with high heel shoes. I still managed not to fall off those toe torture chambers—except for that one time I tripped and toppled down the subway stairs on my way home from a summer job at Macy’s Herald Square. In my own defense, the shoes were too long and too loose because I had to wear a larger size to get the width I needed, and they were stiletto heels—but that’s another story.

My twenty-fourth birthday was memorable in the extreme for a very good reason, thanks to Macho Guy. He drove all the way to my parent’s home from the Army base down south where he was stationed to wish me a happy birthday. He told me he loved me, presented me with a diamond solitaire ring, and then he asked me to marry him. Best birthday present ever! (And I liked the ring too.) I was surprised, of course. I burst into tears, of course. And I absolutely said yes, of course. Consequently, each of my birthdays is also the anniversary of Macho Guy’s marriage proposal and our engagement. So romantic. ::deep sigh::

Now this birthday girl is taking her leave to get ready for birthday dinner out with Macho Guy, who will always be her best birthday present ever. 

Just kidding.

Actually, growing another year older doesn’t bother me one little bit. The alternative to growing another year older is a downer and sure would bother me. Getting to stick around for another year is a priceless gift.

My Baby Sister and I have winter birthdays that are only two weeks apart [five years and two weeks, that is] so we try to celebrate our birthdays together. Last year, I milked the occasions for four birthday dinner celebrations: one for her birthday, one for mine, one joint birthday celebration, and one on Super Bowl Sunday—which happened to fall on my birthday in 2013. I suppose all those birthday celebrations could have been aired in an episode of American Greed.

Yes, happy birthday to me. Aside from all those luscious birthday dinners, I received the gift of spending more time with my loved ones and getting more hugs and kisses from my grandchildren. I received the gift of seeing more of my children’s and my grandchildren’s accomplishments this past year—and seeing more of their comic antics.

I also saw another year’s worth of God’s comic genius, of his quirky sense of humor, of those little jokes he plays from time to time on members of the human race like the Polar Vortex. His best joke of last year: He actually had Miley Cyrus convinced that she is sexy and that people want to see more of her tongue. Ha-Ha! Good one, Lord. I’m still in stitches.

Birthday gifts are great fun. My Baby Sister gave me two dressy T-shirts because she says my T-shirts are not feminine enough. I don’t agree. I have one that says: “If a man speaks in the forest and there is no woman to hear, is he still wrong?” How do you get more feminine than that?

I hope to be around to celebrate more birthdays for a long time to come. I’m not ready to go to Heaven yet–presuming I will go Heaven, that is. At certain times, I’m not sure that my going to Heaven is a given.

One of those times occurs when I’m writing and I must sully my keyboard with some of the naughty words with which my characters insist on expressing themselves. Shameful. They make me want to wash my keyboard and my fingertips with penicillin.

Then there are the times when I experience a twinge (more like a stab) of envy when another writer experiences publishing success of some kind. I always feel petty afterward, I always remove the pins from the little doll afterward, and I always repent and sincerely congratulate the successful author afterward.

If I don’t go to Heaven, if I go in the other direction, I’m certain of the culprit: my writer’s mind. I don’t know if this happens to other writers, but my writer’s mind takes me elsewhere mentally no matter where I happen to be physically. I’m embarrassed to confess that I have been known to lose focus when I’m in church during Sunday mass. My writer’s mind wanders in the direction of my current work in progress. I find myself plotting when I should be praying. I’m hanging my head in shame as I write this, even though I know it is bound to happen again. ::sigh::

Macho Guy will be back from playing golf very soon, so I’m going to cut this short and get gussied up for my birthday dinner—and birthday cake, lots of chocolate birthday cake and ice cream. Mocha Almond Fudge, of course. Mmmmm.

What? I forgot to tell you how old I am? Well, they say the memory is the first to go.