The Power of Family Traditions Birthed during Chaos

Hayven’s got this obsession with birthdays and gifting people things. Pretty much daily, she brings one of us a gift she wrapped for us (usually something of someone else’s she stole out of their rooms that she’s sure we’ll absolutely love). 

Some days she’ll grab toilet paper that's wrapped in paper and unwrap it, talking to herself along the way, swearing that she’s certain she’s going to love what’s inside. When the toilet paper shows its face, hers lights up and she’ll say, “Oh my! It’s a (fill in the blank with something adorably four),” and then she’ll place it with the other toilet paper and go about her day. 

I got a cake (terrible idea because it’s almost gone already) with a bunny’s ass sticking out of his burrow as a symbol of Spring, newness, and bloom. Easter, the resurrection if you will.

I also pulled out my Healing candle for global love purposes.

Last night, we sat for dinner, and by the end of it, Hayven wanted us to sing pretend happy birthday to her while we had cake.

So we did.

And then, yes, even my sixteen and fourteen year old, we all sang happy birthday to each other (all six of us) and gave each other the opportunity to put a wish into the flame and blow it out on the collective healing candle that was the ambiance of our meal. 

I looked up at each of them, really drenched in the idea that this is each of our birth days somehow, in some way. 

We’re all here. Alive. Birthed. Not dead yet. And we were celebrating that today, we are. 

Of course, my eyes swelled as they caught theirs in circle, surrounding flame.

Last year, tonight, at 2am, I was told my oldest son might not live til morning. I received grateful but not perfect results from his MRI today, that his heart though is functioning properly, is still compromised, and this will likely be the beginning of more follow ups, not the end like we were optimistic would be the case. 

Again, at lunch, we lit the candle and did another family round of “Happy Birthday’s” because there will inevitably be birthdays experienced by all of us throughout our lifetimes, without the whole of us. 

While everyone is in isolation, scared of what’s to come, it’s easy to forget to see what’s actually “here.”

But not for me. Not anymore. 

This is a chapter where our family can make rituals, together. 

We’ve unschooled this whole time. 

We’ve been more intimate than previously comfortable, which came as a result of confrontation along with repair. 

When a majority of us are cultured for conflict, little of us are demonstrated to, how to stay with ourselves and others through repair; but this chapter is gifting us the opportunity to mend, when otherwise, we’d likely walk away with a deeper sense of isolation as a result of confrontation, rather than the deeper sense of union we’re finding as a result of it. 

We’re facing each other, in love, even when what we’re facing scares us.

We’re trusting the process as we unfold, and not in a way that trusting is a distrusting thing to do.

Whatever birthdays we miss, when inevitably, there will be less of us; I hope it’s remembered that right now; we were, and right now; we are happy; and right now; is making up for any birthdays that may ever come without the whole of us.

This chapter is giving us the freedom to face our story; to be with it in the discomfort of how intimacy (too vulnerable), feels. 

It’s asking us to celebrate what we have now, knowing that no matter what, good or bad, this, here, now, will never be replicated, and what we do with it are the snapshots of memories that will carry on by us, from us, and for us.

The pictures I want painted in my legacy, look like a lit Healing candle, held up by a piece of petrified wood, by a colorful fruit tray, with the sounds of my children singing happy birthday as they smile in the discomfort of how intimate it is to be seen celebrating being fully alive while we’re still together in the flesh. 

We went for a walk in the pouring, freezing rain on a search for Rainbows today. 

If you’ve been following you know my town (maybe yours too) is having parents and kids who’d like to participate, hang rainbows from their house windows so that other kids can walk the streets and see that a kid lives in there; and that we’re all connected, even in our isolation.

Two of the kids thought this idea was epic, especially on a rainy day. The other two, not so much. But hey, a rainbow hunt, is the kinda thing I’d want them to remember of their world through all of this. And two of them, were found perched in windows other than ours, in just one block and for sure, that’s something we all felt connected to.

I don’t know what your rituals are; or might become; but I do know that our four year old, and the four year old in you, deserves to celebrate that no matter what’s going on in the world, the Universe inside her/him, is beautiful, loved, and allowed to be happy while mother nature prospers along side her/him.

And I know that rituals like this, are the stuff psychic memories books wish, they were made of.

Now’s our only chance. Now’s our only chance to do this one day, this one time, this one meal, this one story, this one memory. Now’s our only chance.

Happy Birthday my friend. May you be the very best of what you want them to remember.