And yet, I spent my day, apparently alone as I was, embraced on all sides by loving good wishes. I did not lack for anything, and the evidence of my obvious good fortune was all around. I marvel at what has been given to me, and those gifts will continue to arrive in abundance, without even asking for them.
One of these gifts is the willingness to look at things newly and openly, and to no longer to be bound by conventional norms. So, I have just mentioned the convention of what a birthday needs to look like, but knowing now that this convention need not hold true, what else have we been told that is not true?
For my age cohort, it is likely that there will be a few more birthdays, and then death will come. Normally this news is greeted with revulsion, denial and fear, but just as I have come to question the context of birthdays, I have also come to question a lot of other things, including the repeated myths of what death will be. I do not know what will happen when death arrives, but I know to be open to what I don’t know, and to be skeptical of what I have been told about what anything will be.
The best possible response to the unknown-ness of death is abundant life, richly lived. So, yes, aging, degeneration, decay, disease, death—richly lived and courageously received.
I wish for all great good fortune. May we flourish in our lives and be of benefit to ourselves and to others.
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