Birthday # 32

Today is my birthday.

I am thirty-two today.  What the hell?  How did I get to 32 this damn fast?  Seriously, I was just in elementary school right?  No wait maybe I was in college and partying like mad.  Whatever....I'm the three and two together....

I'm trying to wrap my brain around the speed of life but I can't.  However, I can tell you I am savoring every morsel of birthday goodness.

It started with a card from my husband....it made me cry and in my intense I will not cry mode I used the bed sheet as a tissue.  Then it was a Dunkin' Donuts coffee.  Then it was to work where my sweet coworker surprised me with...chocolate cake (like a whole, homemade chocolate cake), Lofthouse sugar cookies (weak in the knees), and a card all the preschoolers signed.  I had 13 little voices telling me Happy Birthday at various times of the morning.  

Next came silence.  The kind you never get that makes you go ahhhh.  I had lunch at mom's house.  Strangely enough it was roast beef and mashed potatoes.  That may sound like nothing but this is where it gets me....

My Mammaw used to make each of us a birthday dinner.  She would ask what we wanted and she would make it.  I always asked for the same thing:  roast beef, mashed potatoes, green beans, and apple cake.  She's been dead for eight years and it has been nine years since I had my birthday dinner made by her hands.

Today as I sat in my mom's livingroom, all by myself, I ate leftover roast beef and mashed potatoes.  Gonna admit it ya'll.....I broke down like a break down.  Crying quietly thinking back on other birthdays a long time ago when I'd sit in the yellow plastic backed chair in my Mammaw's kitchen with a plate of her yummy food in front of me and her across from me.  

I really miss her.

Like some kind of bad.

Lately, I've had some feelings of her being with me.  A couple weeks ago when I was at a friend's house I seriously felt her presence like you wouldn't believe.  It sat me on my tail.  Today, eating a bowl of leftovers in the silence.

I've been given, thus far, an exact 32 years on this planet and I am grateful for every nanosecond....every blessing...every heart ache.... every hello....every goodbye...every good meal that triggers a memory made or a memory in the making.  

I pray today that God grants me a whole bunch more.

Love ya'll.  Thank you for your emails and FB messages, posts, etc today.