My Born Day

This is one of my favorite dates.

It is my birthday!

I am older, wiser, and more thoughtful.  I am sure of my voice and the words I write, sure and confident of my contributions in life.  It is that calm feeling that comes when you are at the end of something and the beginning of something.  This is what it feels like to be grown up.

There are other dates that are equally my favorite, but only one when I get to pause for a moment and think about their late parents and their excitement over my birth - I am their baby girl.  I close my eyes and see my late mother, my face is her face, and can only imagine her laboring to deliver me -her fifth child.  Back then, labor and delivery was the domain of women and men just showed up after everyone was beautiful again.  My father was pacing and waiting.

Both my parents have passed on, my mother when I was barely out of toddlerhood and my father when I was in the throws of parenthood. It is funny to me, I feel like I am not old enough to be parentless, barely absorbing that I am the parent of six.

My children are reflections of my heart, walking testaments of the love in my soul, forever etched in the world as words of my spirit.  Each one of them has a place inside my mind.  My four sons and two daughters, still keep thinking am I old enough to have my own clan?

Today is my birthday, the end of one and the start of another, generation, life, decade.  I am determined to complete the promise my parents saw in me.  My late mother wrote "chairman of the board" on the back of my baby picture, the imparting of life, purpose, and destiny happened right then.  She never lived to see me become the woman I am today, but her guiding spirit has always been there to reassure me that this is the right path to take.

I am a  year older.

This is one of my favorite dates on the calendar.

Life is the reason why.