Birthdays, for me, are special. I always look quite perplexed when I ask friends what they did for their birthday and they just shrug and mumble "I don't really celebrate." This is alien to me. This concept of not celebrating life. Not just any life, but your life. I guess that is why I always try to make family and friends' birthdays extra special. And if they give me the spiel about not wanting to make a big deal of it, the more I want to bombard them with love and joy on their birthday. Because I am half fabulous by blood, I have extravagant, Oscar worthy ideas most of the time. Sometimes I manage to pull it off. Sometimes not. But in those not so extravagant efforts is when I extract the most memorable memories. It is, after all, in the small things.
In hindsight, my own birthday memories are often ordinary to others but holds so much more significance to me. So today, towards the end of my birthday week, let me bask in the spotlight and reminisce on a childhood birthday memory that leaves me with warm fuzzies every time I think about it.
I'm not quite sure how old I was turning that birthday (I am guessing maybe six years old), but I still remember sitting on the top of the stair case very early that morning. I must have woken up just on sunrise, in time when the housemaids arose from slumber. Because I have no recollection of having woken up that early, the sights and sounds were unfamiliar to me. I could hear them shuffling around the kitchen as I wiped sleep from my eyes. Even in my giddy excitement, I sat quietly, just listening to the morning sounds. Faucet turning on, along with the splash of water. The click of the stove. The sound of the gas and fire igniting. Eggs splattering in hot oil. An occasionally shriek from the cook who ended up getting the hot oil on their skin. Hushed tones that gradually became a steady stream of sporadic chatter as more people in the house began to welcome the day.
Yet, I still remained silent. In my child's mind, I was thinking how I was to explain my early entrance into this day. That day. My birthday. I was half afraid that the first person to notice me will forget that today was my special day and I will have to swallow my tears if they did.
I stared at my great grandmother's bedroom door willing for it to open. The day before, she excitedly beckoned me inside her room. I loved her room. It was always a treat being invited inside. She had a closet full of beautiful leather and fur coats and stoles. I would always run my little fingers across the soft fur and could only imagine what it would be like to be enveloped in such softness. Of course, at that age I thought that the fur stoles were more like stuffed toys. I often wondered as a child why we were never allowed to play with them. Their softness always left me feeling secure. Lola Goria, as we fondly called her, also collected miniature things. She had a square glass encasement, much like the ones you see in museums. Hers was filled with an array of beautiful miniature things. Small, tiny porcelain pots with matching tea cups and saucers that surely only fairies could use because they were so dainty and all fit in the palm of my little, pudgy hand. I would always push my nose so close onto the glass to peer into the wonderful world of little things. Lola Goria's room was a whole new world!
As I was saying, the day before my birthday, Lola Goria called me into her room quietly. She never spoke much. She spoke with an accent and broken Tagalog. When I was younger, I always just assumed older people spoke just like her. I put it down to old age at the time. Unbeknownst to six year old me she actually spoke like that because she was Japanese and was not fluent in Tagalog. Somehow, we always understood each other.
"Come in," she smiled, peeking her head out of her bedroom door.
I smiled and dutifully slipped inside her room and waited as she closed the door behind us. She shuffled over to her closet, her eyes shining and shimmering; excitement shone like little stars in her grey eyes. I cocked my head to one side as I wondered what she had instore for me.
Lola Goria opened her closet and took out colourfully wrapped packages. One, two, three... I had lost count! She gestured me closer to have a look. She pushed the packages in my small hands one by one.
"This one from Papa and Mummy Fely," she whispered conspiratorially as a slender rectangular package was pressed into my hold.
I gasped when I realised they were birthday presents. For me! I remember matching her excitement when that thought sunk in.
"This one from uncle," she continued as another mysterious package was handed to me.
"These from mummy and daddy," more packages piled up in my arms, slightly bigger and bulkier.
"This one from yaya," she exclaimed, getting more excited as she announced more presents. Yaya is my nanny. She looked after my brother and I when my parents were at work. She was like family to us.
"And this one from me," she smiled proudly as she let me glimpse at an immaculately wrapped box.
"All for me?" I asked in awe, as I looked into her gleaming eyes that continued to shine brightly behind her thick black rimmed glasses.
"Yes," she replied as she hastily put the presents back one by one, safe in their hiding place. "Birthday. Tomorrow."
And that is why I woke up very early that morning of my sixth (or so) birthday, waiting in silent anticipation to open all those beautifully wrapped packages. When Lola Goria finally woke up, she found me sitting on top of the stairs, my chin nestled in my open palms, elbows resting on my propped up knees. When she saw me, she quietly smiled and gestured me to come in, in her unassuming way. I scrambled down the stairs and the presents were all on her made up bed. Piled up high to the sky, waiting for me to open them. To be honest, the only present I remember from that day was a Mickey Mouse watch with black leather straps. Mickey's arms eventually taught me the time. Fancy that because time and time and again, every birthday, I remember that day. Time. Time has a way of making us remember. Whether it be us chasing time because we are late for work or we watch our children grow and beg time to slow down. Time is always there. Just as American novelist, Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote, time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind. So the memories always stay with us.
The most memorable memory for me from this little personal story were not the presents. Although I do not remember what were inside the rest of those colourfully wrapped packages all for me, I can remember clearly the memory leading up to that birthday.... When Lola Goria shared with me the secret of my presents, the excitement that emanated from her the day before, of the early morning house sounds the following morning and of the childhood turmoil of having to announce my presence to everyone.
If I close my eyes long enough, I can still hear the eggs cooking in the splattering oil just like it did that morning many moons ago....
If I sit in quiet contemplation long enough, I can still hear the slow chatter from the housemaids in their native dialects...
If I remember long enough, I can still hear the click of Lola Goria's door and see her head peek out once upon a time...
So, yes. It wasn't the presents that I remember. It was the feeling that on my birthday, I was always loved and thought of and it was remembering my dear Lola Goria. In a way, I think it was from that moment that my need to celebrate birthdays stemmed from. I will never forget the glimmer of happiness in her eyes. She made me excited about birthdays. She made me look forward to them. If that is the legacy she left me, well I am pretty darned proud to share that with all my loved ones. The next time I hear someone say "It's just my birthday," I will have no choice but to celebrate the heck out of it with you. And we shall create happy memories together! Those happy memories I can not wrap up in a package but it sure stays in our hearts forever.
Happy birthday week to me.
