Hi Amy,

How are things going? Did you enjoy the midterm mini break? I wanted to ask you about your birthday. I have written down that it is November 5, is this correct? Do you think you would have a free evening around your birthday that we could celebrate you in the birthday club? Let me know your thoughts and if you are interested….some dates please would be super helpful.

A knot lodged in my throat as I closed the email and looked away from my computer. I knew she was just trying to be nice- and that I signed up to be in a birthday club- but I really didn’t want to think about this particular day slowly creeping towards me.

Birthdays have always been celebrated well in my family. My mom always made sure that we knew we were special and loved, celebrated with great verve. My mom buys and hides gifts all year, preparing for birthdays and Christmas. Sometimes, you’d even get the gifts she hid when the holiday finally arrived! I’ve always celebrated with my family, and my slowly approaching birthday was weighing heavy on my heart. I knew transition would be hard. I knew it would come in waves. While knowing the hard is coming keeps it from being a surprise, it doesn’t make it less painful when it finally arrives.

A text this time… “So CJ’s birthday is coming up. Maybe we could do a bubble dinner on the 12th?” This one’s not even about my birthday, but still, it tickled that tiny piece of dread that my own birthday was on it’s way, and I hadn’t figured out how to make it not sad yet. I called my sister at the edge of tears, “What should I do? I don’t want to make a big deal about my birthday, but it feels like a big deal, and I also want to somehow celebrate!” (This is the dilemma you face when you’re someone who doesn’t like to ask others for anything, but was raised with a mom who rocked birthdays). My sister helped me make a plan! Have over just one friend, make a cake together and watch a movie. It felt like a good compromise- I’d get that celebration, but there wouldn’t be a ton of people. I can’t even fully put in words the angst that I felt released with making a concrete plan. In fact, I can’t even fully put in words why I felt this angst over my birthday at all! It really felt silly, to be unsure of what to do, how to act, or to feel like it was important somehow to acknowledge another rotation around the sun.

But God is a good heavenly Father who lavishly loves us. He saw my hurting heart and provided for others to come around me and fill me with love.

Thursday night, the day before my birthday, I walked into the dorm lounge I provide dorm cover for with the clipboard ready to check chores. My friend (the dorm mom) asks if I noticed… nope! She had set out a pan, box of cake mix and icing ingredients to make a cake with the girls! They had a giant card laid out and a marker where the girls had spent time writing sweet notes and happy birthdays! We enjoyed whisking together with “vigorosity” the cake mix, and seeing the satisfying “Golgi-apparatus shaped swirls” that the icing made as we lifted the whisk from the bowl. We popped it in the oven and waited! And waited. And waited… the oven successfully burned the top of the cake while leaving the inside goo- it cooked for about twice as long as it was supposed to until finally we pulled it out and doused it in icing! Despite the baking difficulties, the cake was not a disappointment! The girls made sure to turn off all the lights and plop two candles in the top of the cake as they carried it out of the dorm kitchen singing. I pulled the candles off the cake before blowing them out (COVID friendly), and sat there a smile hiding behind my mask as the love in my heart grew.

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I took my card home and hung it on my fridge where I would see it when I first woke up Friday morning! I fell asleep thankful that my birthday wasn’t going to be hard after all. How could it when it hadn’t even started yet and was already so wonderful?

My alarm started singing at 5:45 and I pushed snooze as is my typical morning routine. The next time it started going off, it wasn’t quite the same tune, and the button options were a red circle with an X or a green circle with a phone on it! My mom was calling to sing me happy birthday! I gleefully answered the phone to a video call with my mom and dad sitting at the dining room table, the “Happy Birthday” sign my mom made for my older sisters first birthday hanging on the wall behind them- a family birthday tradition! I enjoyed seeing their faces as I rubbed the sleepies from my eyes, sitting up to see their smiling faces. Moments later, I heard a knock on my front door…

For as long as I can remember, one of my favorite birthday traditions has been breakfast with dad! When I was really little, this meant going to school late, and eating an apple fritter in the Meijer bakery café! Over the years, it developed into McDonald’s pancakes and hash-browns, graduating to a Denny’s Grand Slam when my dad learned that they offered free birthday breakfasts. I remember iHOP birthdays, and even Cracker Barrel depending on the season of life and the availability of restaurants around. This past summer, I realized I wouldn’t get anymore birthday breakfasts with my dad once I lived here in Kenya, so on July 1st- one week before I left, I took my dad out for HIS birthday. One more celebratory breakfast before I moved across the world. We rode on the motorcycle together into town and ate a yummy breakfast at The Nook- a small mom-and-pop shop down by the Thornapple River. I only cried a little when we shared with the waitress the reason for our special celebration.

… I paused only briefly to assess the extent of the bedhead nightmare that would be greeting whatever brave soul was knocking on my door at 6am. Confused, I carried my phone, parents on video call and all, with me to unlock the deadbolt. I open the door to find a sweet friend (also named Amy 🙂 ) I’ve made here at RVA holding a metal tin pan containing pancakes and bacon with a cute note on the lid reading “Happy Birthday!” in adorable penmanship. She hands me a paper cup with coffee in it, a cardboard starbucks cup-holder wrapped around the outside keeping it warm. Lastly, I am passed a brown paper bag containing a jar labeled “Maple Syrup” and a jar labeled “Mocha Creamer” sitting atop a cute party napkin. To say I am gobsmacked is an understatement. I’m pretty sure all I managed was a “WHAT?!?!” as she smiled sweetly at me, wished me a happy birthday and said hi to my parents, who were smiling with glee, still on the video call. Said hi. Like she knew them. Like she had been corresponding with them…

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“Alright, alright! Don’t forget the you are special plate!” My mom says as she pulled the hand painted plate always used on birthdays into the camera view.

“It was my idea!” My dad boasts proudly, pouring his own maple syrup as I slowly put together the pieces…

My dad decided we were going to continue our birthday breakfast tradition. Somehow, my mom got in contact with Amy here at RVA. I don’t know how she did it. I don’t even know how she knew to ask Amy! Either way, they were in kahoots. Amy got up at who knows what hour of the day…5:30am? 5:00am? to bring me breakfast with my dad. My eyes burned as the reality of the love shown to me by my parents and my friend Amy slowly welled up within me. The tears spilled over as I blubbered nonsense while pouring syrup over lovingly flipped pancakes.

“Is the bacon floppy? I told her you like your bacon floppy!” My mom inquired, still smiling ear to ear. “I put in a special request for that.” Not even the slightest detail was overlooked in providing me with perfection. As my dad ate French toast at 11 o’clock pm eastern standard time, I smiled at him through the camera pancakes in hand at 6am eastern African time.

The worries I had feared melted away in the warmth of love. I pulled two gifts from my closet that had been sitting there since July. My mom had packed them into my luggage before I left, wrapped and ready for this very day. I laughed at her classic comics, taped to the inside of my birthday card, just like she’s always done. I smiled to see my dad had even signed his own name in the cards- reminding me that the distance between us, though thousands of miles, is really not so far at all.

To honor my joyful mood, I put on my favorite chemistry earrings, serotonin and dopamine- the happy chemicals in your brain, a gift at one point from my sister, ready to face the rest of the day.

As the day has progressed, I’ve felt more and more love from those around me- small gifts from coworkers and friends, even a gift from one of my students! I was sung to countless times; from staff members harmonizing for me during chai time, to 17 boys off key in AP Chem. Listing birthdays in the student announcements (which happens daily) meant students I don’t even have in class made sure to wish me a happy birthday when walking past.

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My day ended by eating homemade pizzas, watching Pirates of the Caribbean, and baking my favorite chocolate-mocha cake, followed with a phone call from my sister in California as I washed dishes before turning in for the day. I mentioned to someone recently the pairings I’ve been seeing of good and hard. My heart grieved anticipating the day to be difficult to navigate and walk through… making days that weren’t even my birthday itself hard. But in God’s gracious love, the day was filled instead with sweetness from dawn to dusk. I am so thankful for the manifestation of God’s love that I felt so tangibly through the thoughtful acts of those around me. I’ve cried three times already, just retelling this story to my friends! I cried when I typed it up- but these tears are happy tears. An overflowing of the heart that comes welling up in my eyes. Each catch in my voice reminds me of how deeply loved I am, and how thankful I am for all the blessings I’ve already begun to find while doing life here at RVA.

Prayer Points

• Please thank God for the sweetness of my friend who made my birthday so memorable and special by bringing me breakfast.
• Please thank God for the thoughtfulness of my mom and dad for setting this up, and for eating French toast at almost midnight to spend my breakfast with me.
• Please pray that I would continue to trust God with each hard thing as they come as transition continues.
• Please pray the Lord would use me to bless others who are here on their birthdays, my friends, coworkers, and students, that they would feel loved and cared for in a meaningful way.