75th Birthday Celebration

75th Birthday Celebration

Georgean Ewart

Olivia Hoff

Celebrating my birthday while Safe at Home

I’ve been doing well. Staying close to home most of the time during the COVID-19 pandemic. Still, turning seventy-five is a milestone. How would I celebrate my birthday all by myself? I had heard of people driving by the birthday boy’s or girl’s home, honking their horns and singing to them. Would that be the case for this old girl? Many friends and neighbors are sheltering in place though so perhaps I should not expect too much.
However, being a life-long planner, I started to “advertise” my birthday. Telling people far and near that this was my year. I telephoned and e-mailed. I have always received many birthday cards on my birthday. I expected no less on this birthday.
Then I thought I must plan a solo celebration for myself. What would that look like? Well, I asked Janice and Patrick (who do my grocery shopping) for me to pick up a birthday pie for me. I’ve always been very fond of Edward’s key lime pie.
As I thought more about a solo celebration, I asked myself what is something fun or funny that I’ve always wanted to do but held back. Again, I asked Janice and Patrick to pick up some temporary hair color for me. Mind you, I have had WHITE hair for many years now. I did color my hair many, MANY years ago. At that time, I went to a salon to have it done. Salons are all closed now. Hmmm? Well, I went to YouTube and watched several videos. At last I chose a combination of approaches, to make this as simple as possible. I prepared the bathroom where I would do this. Put on a dark T-shirt and dark pants and proceeded to color my hair. I waited the twenty minutes and then rinsed my hair.
VOILA! I had hot pink hair. My opinion was that it was not particularly attractive. Certainly it was attention getting though! I went out for walk around the neighborhood, hiding my hair under the hood on my rain jacket.
But wait! Who is this pulling onto my street as I head out! Yes, it’s my friends Katie and Molly. They like my pink hair! Who knew?! They also tell me they didn’t expect to see me, they are not wearing masks, that I should carry on with my walk, they just wanted to drop off a little something for me…ok, I say. I keep walking. When I return home. I see they have decorated my lawn with yard signs---announcing my age and my birthday. It is beautiful to behold. They are clearly gifted artists. I smile and laugh out loud. I am so pleased, so touched, so buoyed by their effort, their kindness. AND, they have also dropped off a home-made, decorated chocolate cake just for me. Now I have pie and cake! I can handle this. After all, I’ve been eating dessert for seventy-five years now!
The next morning my phone rang and I hear my friend Lori singing “Happy Birthday” to me. How nice, I think. I had just sung “Happy Birthday” to myself and frankly, it brought tears to my eyes. This was my first birthday as a widow. So Lori’s call blessed me. AND, more good news---she was parked in my driveway! She tells me she likes my pink hair too! She has stopped at my place on her way to work to drop off a beautiful container of pansies for me. Such beautiful flowers! So delicate. But there’s more! She has brought me a gorgeous chocolate cupcake piled high with frosting! Now I have pie and cake and a cupcake! Yes, I can handle this too.
In the meantime, my neighbors Dave and Eileen drive over to observe the lawn signs. Eileen phones me a bit later and asks if there’s anything that I need, she’s on her way to the grocery store. Well, I say, I haven’t had my favorite pastry (the humble long john) since my hibernation began. Soon Eileen pulls into my driveway with TWO long johns, and BALLOONS! She likes my pink hair too! And, yes, sugar is an important part of my life. Later that day, she phoned again--she was playing Aretha Franklin’s song R.E.S.P.E.C.T. loud enough for me to hear it. She asked if I was dancing. I was. So we listened to the music together “rockin’ and a-boppin’ and a-singin’ that song!” (If you’re in my age bracket you may remember that those are the lyrics from a rock ‘n roll song in the 1950s—“Rockin’ Robin.”)
Late morning on my birthday, I Skyped with my friend Susan in Brussels. We were online for about an hour. Laughing together. She didn’t expect to see pink hair on her friend.
After that call, I noticed that someone(s) else had stopped by while I was Skype-ing. More BALLOONS! More laughter. AND, crepe paper streamers! They decorated my lamp post and porch light with streamers as well as my mailbox and several bushes. I have yet to find out who brought all of this and decorated.
Throughout the day, I took one phone call after another as friends and family got in touch.
Finally, I phoned another neighbor, Chris, and asked her to come over and photograph my yard and me. Most of my family lives out of town so I wanted to share all of these fanciful things with them too.
To tell the truth, my seventy-fifth birthday is probably the most memorable birthdays I have ever had. I believe I smiled more and laughed more and ate more dessert than I have ever done before. More importantly, so many people were a part of my celebration. No hugs. No handshakes. No kiss on the cheek. And yet I felt the love. As I’ve heard someone say, “I was blessed out of my mind!” It is true. Even in isolation, people reached out to me, went out of their way to make my day, encouraged me, and gave me many, many reasons to be grateful for this life. I am still smiling.