Celebrating Sixty-Four!

 I just celebrated my 64^th birthday. Aside from the fact that I have the Beatles song lyrics, “Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm sixty-four?” rattling around in my head, aging has never bothered me. I think that’s mostly because I am keenly aware that every birthday is a gift. Not one of us is guaranteed tomorrow, and so each birthday leaves me thinking, “How did I get so lucky?” I’m feeling full of gratitude and not really deserving. There will always be reasons to complain, but there are many more reasons to rejoice. My kids all live in town, and I see them regularly. We enjoy spending time together as a family. I love being a grandma. I enjoy getting the occasional senior discount. I am beyond grateful for the 40 years I have spent married to my husband. I have a great job. I even love my grey hair, believe it or not! Life is good.

So how did I celebrate birthday my 64^th birthday?

I had the privilege of starting my birthday with a 6:00 am appointment at the blood donor center. I got a call last week saying that I was an HLA match for a patient in the hospital, and could I come in on Thursday? Birthday donations are the best, and this one was extra special because of the circumstances of the donation. I could go into a lengthy explanation of HLA matches, but let’s just say that this patient needed something I was uniquely qualified to give him/her. I can say with confidence that any regular blood/platelets donor who would get a call like this would be honored to make this donation a priority. The donation was a success, but it wasn’t exactly perfect. I had a “slow leak” infiltration before I was done, at which time they had to stop the donation. The good news is that although they were attempting to get a “double” unit from me, they still got just over the amount of a “single” donation. That was a sufficient quantity of platelets to help  my match-patient. Infiltration and all, I would do it again in a heartbeat. I was grateful for my first birthday gift of the day.

The blue tags are because it's an HLA match donation.

 Anyway, all of that happened before 8:30 am. The next part of my birthday was spent at Kingdom Kids. That place is amazing. My preschoolers sang “Happy Birthday” to me, I was regaled with birthday greetings and even a gift from other staff, and my son-in-law bought me a pumpkin chai blender. This was my first time to have one of those, and I HIGHLY recommend it. Yum. I headed home after work feeling filled up with the love of friends (and the yumminess of the chai blender). 

The afternoon was quiet. I walked around and took a few pictures outside. I replied to birthday greetings on Facebook. Oh, and we received a new “mattress in a box” so once R.J. got home, we unboxed that and watched it inflate. I’m sure all of you wish you could do something that cool on your birthday, right?

Autumn look of Bee Balm

Our evening plans included dinner at The Outback and “Matilda” at the Civic Theatre. Both experiences were wonderful. That fun evening was R.J.’s present to me, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I got to see one of my former preschoolers in the play. Anna did GREAT! 

Chocolate Thunder Down Under - minus one bite :-)

Me and Anna (it's been a few years since she was in preschool)

It was an amazing day, a wonderful beginning to my 65^th year. So, do I have any words of wisdom from those 64 years on earth? Well one thing is sure. I don’t want to miss the chance to encourage you to get in on the amazing, lifesaving opportunity of blood donation. Because of one negative experience in college (I passed out right after donating), I missed out on 30 years of donating. I regret that. If you have never donated blood (or maybe it’s been 30 years since your last attempt), why not give it a try!? Maybe you have been excluded in the past – why not call and see if that exclusion still applies? Regulations sometimes change over time. Or there are a million other ways to help people, so just do one of them. No matter where you are on your journey, just take the next step – whether it’s donating blood or volunteering for a non-profit or giving your neighbor a hand. That next step is likely going to knock your socks off, because that’s the kind of God we serve. I guess that’s my advice. Let the socks FLY! 

And remember - I love you, my friends!!