MY UPCOMING BIRTHDAY

Someone asked me last week “How are you celebrating your birthday?” I said “No special way. No one notices my date except a few close friends, my Sis, and my adult children.”  As I reflected, I thought how important Mother made of Sis and my birthdays.  She even had “Happy Unbirthdays” to celebrate with us. She loved giving us gifts like a bracelet, a book, or a new dress.  She reminded us weekly, if not daily, how much she loved us. Throughout my growing years I wanted a cake baked by Mother to sit on the tiny footed cake plate she bought for me.  It had to be decorated in pink letters made of sugar that said, "Happy Birthday  Vivian."  That plate is still as colorful as when the first cake sat there eighty years ago.

I married a man who rarely remembers dates of any kind. The few times he has and has produced a gift, I’ve been surprised.  Early in our marriage I usually got a flower pot or something worth giving Goodwill. I decided I didn’t need any more flower pots so I insisted he not worry about my special date. Then he began taking me to dinner. That lasted three years.  Here’s a man who, with each of three children born, gave the hospital nurse three different dates for my birthday. We had been married five, six and ten years at the time. The fact that he’s still living and talking to me every day is gift enough.

Sunday I’m turning 83 and I don’t care about a present. I need a hug and a vocal “Happy Birthday, love you”.  I don’t mind if they add, “Old gal.”  I’m excited to be my age and in decent good health.  That is the best gift I could receive.

Family History--Again

I've written about my journey into family lines before, encouraging readers to begin their own journey. This time I want to report the excitement of finding old friends, regretably, long since passed, but discovering a tiny bit more about them after we parted.

One such was a junior high (middle school) friend. Pretty, blond with a reserved manner, Nancy was my favorite friend. I don't recall her ever going to movies with me, but she did play board games. We had a group of girls during the last few years of 8th and 9th grades who enjoyed playing games, also. We'd meet at different homes on Saturday and play all afternoon. Then we'd depart and catch the city bus back home.

On one occasion Nancy and I decided to bike (the common means of transportation when you didn't ride the city bus) from her house in west Jackson to a two-lane road in South Jackson--quite a ride. Then, Raymond Road was little used on Saturdays. and years later would be a main road. I took photos of her and she of me of that journey. I found those photos recently in my photo album I kept from seventh grade through high school. After she moved to Tuczon, AZ she sent a few pictures, graduated from college, married and she and her husband became Bible translators for Wycliffe Translators.

Being a member of http://www.ancestry.com/ allows me to enter a name and check birth, death, and censuses primarily on anyone who has died. I found Nancy's death, plus an article from the Tuczon's newspaper about her missionary family returning for several months furlough from Korea. She and her husband lived among native people in the most primitive conditions while translating portions of the New Testament into a language and teaching the natives to read.

At that time I was a new teacher enjoying a semblance of life away from home, eating well, having fun with fellow teachers, all the while Nancy and her family were living opposite. I often thought about her but I didn't know how to get in touch. So using ancestry methods to find my dear friend gave me such an unexpected deja vu.

Next I discovered a family member had entered her profile in the Ancestry bank, and I was able to read that she had died in Tennessee. I wrote that person stating I had photos of Nancy, would he/she want them to complete Nancy's file? Yes, came the answer, and with joy I sent them.

That one day discovering dear friend Nancy gave me the most joy, despite knowing she no longer lives. She had a tremendous spirit of giving, and I know that had I checked in 1995, two years before her death, I would probably found her and visited with her before her death in 1997. My next step is to find where her grown children are located.

Thankfully I have Ancestry's bank of research to discover people who once passed through my life.

Keeping Up with the Electronic Age

I hadn't intended joining Facebook. I thought it was for the younger generation. But I wanted to see a video daughter J had shared on her page. Then I began to read the notes (public notes, that is) from her friends with whom I was familiar. Well, I thought, maybe this is a good way to keep up with news of all her friends. So I joined. In this way I'd not have to ask her from time to time "What's going on with LW?" I could just check her Facebook page and see if she had written J a note. Then my son S joined. Surprisingly, because he has trouble just reading and answering his emails. However, by checking these two pages I see photos never before shared with us. Not because the kids are thoughtless, just because they don't send us every snapshop.

I'm not nosy. I'm curious about everything and everyone. Who knows when I'll meet someone who knows someone I know or my kids know? It's good for conversation when you can speak a little about a lot of things and people. Back to Facebook--I don't know how to find pages of people my age, so I have to be happy to read what is going on in the minds of folks younger than I. Half of the time I think they're speaking in unknown tongues. Someone told me to watch "Family Guy" on TV and learn the latest lingo. I failed to recognize what was being said, so I'm trying to translate the latest vocabulary on Facebook.

I don't use a closeup pic, so my photo won't appear on someone's passport or driver's license. You can see me rappelling down the side of a tall hill in Tennessee. After that first jump when I thought my life would end,I was able to enjoy the drop; the climb up was impossible. One time rappelling was enough for me.

Visit me at Facebook. Become my friend.If you want to.