Birthday

She looked at herself in the mirror and remembered today is her birthday.  So how old is she? She did a quick math in her mind and was shocked at the number she came up with.  She noticed the gray in her hair - she has vowed to never color her hair when she started seeing the gray hair growing - it can truly be described as "salt and pepper" now (maybe more salt than pepper?)  She remembers how she used to "hire"her then 9-year-old son to pull every gray hair out of her head. Ten cents for every gray hair. Later he would protest and went on a strike.  He demanded one dollar for each gray hair because mom, you don't have that many gray hair and it's hard to pull them out.  He wouldn't say the same now, would he?  The wrinkles around her eyes are most obvious - her sister calls them "smiling wrinkles." She smiled at the thought of her sister who is living in Canada now and enjoying being a grandmother to a bunch of white children.  And she thought of her own grandchildren and knew that she will get calls from them later; and a visit from some of them who are driving now.  Ah, her own grandchildren are old enough to drive.
Was she supposed to feel something different because today's her birthday?  She thought of her mother; she always thinks of her mother on her birthday.  Remembering the story she was told: She was about 6 or 8 weeks premature when she was born.  Before the doctor and mid-wife left after her birth, they told her parents that it's not likely the baby will live. Be prepared and that they are young, they will have more children. A tiny, sickly baby whose palm wasn't bigger than her mother's thumb.  Her dad would tell the story of how her mother would gently press her thumb unto the baby's hand and be crying the whole time because how small the baby was.  Her father's attitude was quite philosophical - 是兒不死，是財不散 - If the child is yours, it will not die; if the treasure is yours, it will not be spread.  Her father said that her mother would sob each time she bathed her, look! her skin is paper thing and you can see her heart beating and those tiny veins are like spider webs, oh, my poor child.  Her mother would try to nurse her and her father would later said that he worried more about the baby being choked to death by her mother's breast than anything else. He would laugh and they would all laugh... but she knew so well that the only reason she lives is because her mother's will to feed her with the nutrient, strength and love which only a mother could give.
For some reasons she remembers her 42nd birthday particularly well.  Is it because that was the year she learned how to be a child all over again? Or that she finally had enough courage to find her inspiration? And how happy and delighted she was of all the conversations she had with her inspiration?  How she was encouraged and taught to live a life which is true to herself?  That was also the first year she ran the Pear Blossom 10-mile run - just to see if she could - and unexpectedly loving the times she spent pounding the pavement. These memories seem so distant and yet still fresh in her mind.  Oh, the past...  What did Emerson say about the past? She chuckled here because she remembered being called "dorky" - every conversation or thought of hers could always be connected with a book, or a poem - she's admitted being and is still dorky to this day.
"The debt is paid,
The verdict said,
The Furies laid,
The plague is stayed,
All fortunes made;
Turn the key and bolt the door,
Sweet is death forevermore.
Nor haughty hope, nor swart chagrin,
Nor murdering hate, can enter in.
All is now secure and fast;
Not the gods can shake the Past;
Flies-to the adamantine door
Bolted down forevermore.
None can re-enter there,-
No thief so politic,
No Satan with a royal trick
Steal in by window, chink, or hole,
To bind or unbind, add what lacked,
Insert a leaf, or forge a name,
New-face or finish what is packed,
Alter or mend enteral Fact."
She smiled to herself in the mirror and was content that she looks every bit of an old lady that she is supposed to be.  And the beautiful thing is... she is ok with it.