What is a birthday anyway?

This year my birthday slipped in like an extra dinner guest. Surrounded by my adult children and grandsons, I succeeded in making it through the singing and blowing out of candles without tears. Of course, it wasn’t anyone’s fault that the special day I share with my twin sister insinuated itself into the complex arena of my husband’s ongoing battle with cancer. Illness and death are part of life’s journey, just like birthdays. One thing the pandemic taught me was to look for joy in every day. That effort has been a daily practice for the last two years, and it continues to serve me well.

In thinking about this year’s deflated birthday celebration, I realized that there have been other times when my birthday arrived at an inopportune moment like an unexpected guest. Recently, I was perusing old emails and scraps of writing and came upon an excerpt about other birthdays in my life. While this snippet won’t make it into my next memoir (due out in Spring 2024), some of the essence of this piece did land in Twice a Daughter: A Search for Identity, Family, and Belonging which was published in May 2021. 

This excerpt was written about a decade ago, at a time when I had searched and located a few of my birth relatives. This passage begins with a scene outside The St. Vincent’s Center at 721 N. La Salle in Chicago. The building is now a Catholic relief services facility, but it once served the community as an Infant & Children’s Home. It is the same orphanage from which my twin sister and I were adopted in 1959. 

Here, I write about returning to St. Vincent’s to join a post-adoption support group made up of adult adoptees like me and birth mothers who surrendered their children to Catholic Charities for adoption placement:

The corner of Dearborn and Huron is fraught with construction. There’s a crane where an empty parking lot used to be. I suspect that this is the very same parking lot where the orphanage playground used to be. A place where the flying nuns, full habited Sisters of Charity, pushed older orphans on swing sets, where they taught some to play ball, others to ride tricycles, and where they sat on benches feeding fussy infants’ bottles of formula. 

I would like to think that these devoted caregivers indulged us. That they gave us an extra feeding if we whimpered. That they reached into the pockets of their warm coats and shared a chocolate that they’d been saving for the train ride home. That they kissed away our frets and teased a giggle from our bellies. Maybe, they dreamt about the long waiting list of prospective adoptive parents. Perhaps, too, they prayed for the administrators so that the babies entrusted to their care would be matched with a set of new parents who would lovingly meet their needs. 

Inside St. Vincent’s main hall, there are a dozen of us scattered around a grouping of tables. The moderator, Lisa, commands our attention.

“We will begin our session today with an icebreaker. State your name, whether you are an adoptee, birth parent or adoptive family member. Tell us also your birthday. You can leave off the year if you want,” she giggles. Lisa sips from a chilled Dasani, adding, “I’ll tell you why after we go around the table.”

Two group members sitting next to one another have the same birthday. “What’s the likelihood of that,” Lisa says, and we are all smiles.  

“We started with this exercise because I wanted to emphasize the significance and multiple meanings a birthday can have,” Lisa explains. “Some of you had birthdays over the holidays and that has its own challenges. Celebrating the holidays can be stressful enough, but then add to that all of what a birthday can mean to those in the adoption circle and emotions are intensified.” 

Lisa lets the impact of her words settle on the tabletops. Knowing looks are traded amongst some of us. Several folks have far off glances, and a few others study their cuticles. I think about my birthday and how my adoptive mother worked hard at making my special day a joyous occasion, and I muse about how lucky I am to share a birthday with a sibling I’ve been close to since before we were born. 

My thoughts are interrupted. “There are several birth mothers here today. Perhaps they can speak to what their child’s birthday represents to them. And for adoptees, I’d like to ask how you view your birthday? Was it a happy day when you were growing up? Is it a happy day now?”

When it’s my turn, I share about how my childhood birthday celebrations were special and joyous, and how much being a twin has meant to me. And then to the newcomers in the group, I offer a strategy in dealing with their birth mom on their birthday.

“If I don’t hear from my birth mom by 2 or 3 pm, I call her. My phone call preempts any   unpleasant feelings from creeping into my special day. Feelings like rejection and loss, feeling forgotten or unimportant.” 

When I say this, several birth moms chime in. “Oh, you are never forgotten. And if we don’t call, it’s not rejection. It could be that we just can’t go there… to the day you were born because there is so much pain. Pain about the unwed pregnancy, how our families and society made us feel, pain about your surrender and separation through closed adoption.”

My birthday has been many things over the last six decades. Joyous. Fun. Disappointing. Memorable. Sad. Boring. Incredible. Frustrating. Complicated. No birthday has ever been a repeat, and I do not expect that to change.

So, what is a birthday anyway?

It is a time to celebrate life. Life with all its warts and wrinkles and with all its gleam and sparkle. There will always be pleasurable moments that take a seat beside trauma, grief, and loss. As I deal with the unimaginable loss of my lifetime partner, friend and confidante, I’m mindful of the many people across the globe navigating other unbearable crises. I have no wisdom to offer other than my own experience: we survive loss, disappointment, and uncertainty by relying on and receiving the generosity and support of friends and strangers with big hearts. 

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