Beloved, put some music on and we'll celebrate.
I still can recall when my Birthday is. I've saved you a piece of virtual Birthday Cake. You can eat this kind all day long and not gain a pound.
Want to hear a story? I'd like to tell you one. This may take a minute, so please have a seat.
I was born to a young married couple welcoming their 3rd child into their family. Being the second daughter, it would be 3 years before baby brother entered the world to where I would sorta be a middle child, but still the baby girl.
Mom has said the time of day was 7:14 in the morning when I was born in the 7th month of the year on the 14th day, weighing in at 7 pounds 14 ounces, 21 inches in length.
That seems to be alot of 7 and 14s. Just came to me that 7 plus 14 equals 21...hum. In all these years that never came to mind until right now. Will wonders never cease? My given name is Deanna Fern. I would be named after both of my Grandmothers, Anna Elizabeth and Anna Fern. I would be the little girl named after 2 Annas.
I was born at a Wichita, Kansas Hospital, taken home to a little house and showered with attention by my family. My earliest memories that I can recall are when I would lay in the front lawn playing in the grass while waiting for my older brother to return from school. Also, Dad burning TV Dinners for us children while Mom was in the Hospital when my little brother would be born. I clearly remember Mom holding an infant in her arms while being wheeled out in a wheel chair into the Waiting Room. I asked, "Is that your baby, Momma?" I was two months shy of being three years old.
A few months later, I rode in a big truck with my Dad that my Parents used to move us to Liberal, Kansas where we would live as Dad had a new job and Mom would be a Homemaker.
Our home things would go into storage as Liberal was having an Oil Boom and housing was a challenge. We would live in a borrowed super small camper trailer parked in a trailer park where my sister and I would play with an infected cat. We got ring worm. The stench of the medicine Mom would apply to our wounds stays in my mind. Playing outside is a pleasant memory for me. It would be at this Trailer Park where Mom would befriend Rosie, an incredibly friendly woman that would remain a family friend until her 2003 death on my Mother's Birthday.
Near the trailer park was a green rental house that we'd move into. My bedroom was upstairs and I would share a bed with my sister. While I was playing with a friend in our yard, I witnessed our dog being hit by a car. The Vet made a house call, but our dog died anyway. Buried in the yard.
Halloween would roll around and through the large picture window we'd see a spook looking into the livingroom. This would be my Dad wearing a sheet over his head playing a trick on us.
As a family, the day would come when we went to look at a small white house with a large fenced back yard. Room to play. I recall getting all dressed up to go to the Financial Institution for a Mortgage. I didn't know why we were there, just knew we were to be quiet while my Parents visited. The loan was a go and we would be told that the house we had looked at would be our new home. I recall being so happy that we had a new place to live.
It was at this place in life where memories begin to make sense and I can remember them. As a child, over all I felt safe and had a wonderful childhood. It would be at this place where I received my first kiss from a 5 year old boyfriend, learned about the birds and the bees, discovered that Santa was Mom and Dad. I would go on my first date, learn to drive a car and determined to be an A Student.
It would be at this little house that I was Raised in a Christian Home with my Mom and Dad loving each other and wanting their children. Where my Dad worked hard at his job and Mom worked hard at hers. We were well fed, kept clean and groomed, dressed in good repair clothing, taught right from wrong and to have manners, be honest, attend a local public school, became members of the First United Methodist Church and grew into a young woman.
I'd learn to set a table, wash and dry dishes, put them away, vaccuum, dust, iron clothing, tidy a room, read, draw, be kind to one another, share our toys, learn to tie my shoes, make a bed, groom, sew doll clothes, curl my hair, polish my shoes, be kind to our pets, write, make pizzas, eat shrimp and say a prayer. It would be here that a brother went to College and a sister left home to get married. It would be here that I graduated from High School and started attending the local Community College. Met my future husband and began a romance that lingers in my head.
I would be living at this house when I took Polio Vaccine in a sugar cube, suffered from Rheumatic Fever, got my first pair of glasses, President Kennedy was shot, sang along with the Beatles, got a training bra, started my period and men walked on the moon. We got a new modern refridgerator, an electric dishwasher, went from one television channel on the tv to three. Went from a black and white television set to a color tv. From sharing one phone line with a multitude of households to having a private line.
I remember each year we'd celebrate our Birthdays with cake and ice-cream. We'd be honored with a gift. While singing Happy Birthday, we'd blow out the candles on the cake. Though I no longer live in that little white house, I still celebrate Birthdays. So Happy Birthday to Me!!!
As I was typing this post, a phone call from Jerusalem came in. My son called to wish me a Happy Birthday. For me, this is a first international phone call for receiving Happy Birthday wishes. I wished I had asked him to sing to me. Wow, what a tune that would have been heard all the way across the ocean.
On the sidebar I have a picture of a pitcher full of roses. When it's your Birthday month, I hope you'll post this picture of the roses on your blog in honor of your Birthday. Here's to wishing you a wonderful Birthday this year. May your Birthdays always be pleasant and full of happy thoughts.
My Childhood Home was a Haven. I was blessed to have a safe and loving home haven. I was blessed to have a carefree childhood. I was blessed to have a childhood where I could be a child and experience my age as it was happening. I wanted my children to have the same, the gift of being wanted and be a child in a loving family. My Adult life has been a more difficult experience than my childhood. Still life goes on and I pray that I live to a ripe old age full of satisfaction.
God Bless you,
~Deanna~
