This week I celebrated my 45th birthday.
Growing up, my parents always made a big deal out of our birthdays. So, I grew up celebrating big! In fact, I tease my family that I like to celebrate my entire birthday week or month.
Because my birthday is 11 days after Christmas, I also joke that everyone is broke and tired of partying when my birthday rolls around.
My family knows it’s a big no-no to wrap my birthday presents in Christmas paper or give me a present for Christmas and say it’s also for my birthday. Nope. You wouldn’t do that if my birthday was in July.
My grandparents were notorious for doing this. They would tell me they had just spent a little extra on my Christmas gift for my birthday. As a little kid, it would make me so mad. I dreamed of a July birthday party around a pool, in the sunshine… with presents wrapped in colorful birthday paper.
Maybe that’s why my parents made sure my birthday was celebrated well. And they continue to do that today, and my husband and kids and my in-laws all do the same thing. It’s really sweet.
Birthdays should be special. It’s the day we celebrate our coming into the world. So it’s kind of a big deal.
My momma and I go shopping on my birthday every year. I like to spend my birthday with my mom. I mean, she is the one who brought me into the world. So it has become our yearly tradition to spend that day together, and I love it.
This year I had such a great birthday. I received calls and text messages from so many people, Facebook posts… Instagram and Twitter…
It’s so much fun to see how many people think about you and love you. I went to bed that night feeling incredibly grateful and loved.
I heard from people that day that I hadn’t heard from in years. People that were once a regular part of our lives…
My family rarely watches Monday night football. In fact, I don’t remember the last time we had the Monday night football game on the television with the whole family in the living room. My son watches sports more than the rest of us, but he usually watches the game in another room. I just can’t emphasize how rare it is for the four of us to sit in the living room during Monday night football and watch the game on TV.
But this Monday night, that’s just what we were doing. We had the volume turned down as we were sitting around visiting. Then, my husband noticed something was happening and told us to turn up the volume. We quickly rewound the game to see what happened. We saw Damar Hamlin take a hit, stand up and then fall to the ground. We watched the commentators struggle to know what to do or say. We saw the players make a human wall around Damar as they frantically performed CPR, trying to save his life.
Now I’m going to be completely honest with you. Before Monday night, I had never heard the name, Damar Hamlin. I had no idea who he was or that he played for the Buffalo Bills. I had no idea that his number was 3 or that he was 24 years old. Because I don’t really even like football. It’s not the sport I enjoy watching.
But immediately when Damar fell to the field, I began to do Google searches on who this kid was, where he was from, how old he was… I was invested. I was worried. I was concerned. I wanted to know if he was going to be ok.
There was something crazy about watching a young football player in his prime run down a field, play football the way he does every day, get hit, stand up and fall down. I literally watched the life leave his body. And it was a shocking thing to see.
We watched until the decision was made to end the game. All the while, we were watching Twitter for updates. We kept watching ESPN news until we finally went to bed. Then I turned the news on in our bedroom to see if the hospital was giving any updates.
The following day, I checked the news to see if there were any updates. Since Monday night, I have typed the name Damar Hamlin into my Twitter search more times than I can count.
I’ve watched ESPN every day, hoping for updates.
And I’m not the only one. In fact, the whole world is watching. Everyone is invested. Everyone cares.
Damar Hamlin is a name that everyone now knows. Even those who aren’t sports enthusiasts.
Damar Hamlin has been able to see how many people love and care about him.
That’s a much larger and more serious thing, but it has some similarities to my birthday. I received messages from people I hadn’t heard from in quite some time but also from people I see every day. So by the end of my birthday, I felt very loved. And it felt good.
It left me wondering what life would be like if we loved like that every day. What if we reached out more often to let people know they were loved? What if we didn’t wait to contact people until they were celebrating a birthday or anniversary?
What if we didn’t wait until someone was on the verge of death or sick or found out they were dying? What if when we thought about someone, we reached out with a text, phone call, or social media?
What if we “lived like we were dying”? You know, rode that bull named Fu Man Chu, went skydiving…
What if we loved deeper, spoke sweeter, and gave forgiveness we had been denying…
Has anyone really ever said it better than Tim McGraw?
I love the fact that Damar Hamlin has had the opportunity to realize how much people love and care for him.
I love that on my birthday, I felt loved by people… some whom I thought had probably written me off for life.
And I know that every day can’t be that way.
But I think there’s a lesson there.
We can do better.
Until Next Time,
Whitney