THE SEVENTH BIRTHDAY PARTY
Happy birthday!
After the first, my family considers the seventh birthday very important because to us this is the time when the child will be old enough to remember the fun of having a birthday party. As my Mom would have it, the first six birthday parties are actually for grownups because kids can’t have a bite of the lechon yet. Well I think she’s right because I don’t think anyone will ever remember what he/she ate during his/her first birthday party (that is if you were given something!) or what games he/she played in his/her third birthday party?
But when you’re seven, everything is like a wonderful surprise you always want to happen again and again and again; everything is so vivid and clear in your mind. And should you forget the important events that happened on that day at least you have your seven-year old visitors to help you remember.
Tamar, my nephew, will have his share of a grand seventh birthday party. Since I was tasked to prepare for the big event, everybody is expecting to see something different, something spectacular and extra ordinary. Known for giving surprises, my family will not discount the possibility that the cake will be tamarind-flavored, the games a combination of fresh eggs, water and paint and the decorations a splash of never-seen-before colors. The grandiose plans are all written in my journal and no one will ever know what these plans are - not even Tamar - not until his birthday comes.
Tamar will be seven, oh yes! And I’m already out of wits just thinking what other special things I need to put in to make it even more than just the best.
...But Tamar will never get to eat his tamarind-flavored birthday cake nor blow his special seven candles. He will never celebrate his seventh birthday. In fact, he will not celebrate even a first.
Just six months after she delivered Xenia, my sister learned that she’s pregnant again. Worried that her womb might not be strong enough to carry another baby, her doctors offered clinical abortion as an option. But she never considered this because she is more than just eager to see another wonder spring to life.
But the worries eventually came. I was reviewing for my CPA exams then when front desk told me to run to the hospital where my sister was rushed. Groggy and tired from sleepless nights of studying, I got alerted when I learned that my brother-in-law was still hours away and that I have to be in the operating room to witness the procedures that the doctors were going to perform.
In the operating room, I saw how doctors did all they could and were just seconds away from snatching the baby out of Joe Black’s hands when my sister felt what she described as a sound of a snapping rubber band. Exhausted and tired, my sister and I saw Tamar - a very handsome boy – raised and spanked only to be declared stillborn.
All these happened right in front of me. I, young and innocent at that time, witnessed how doctors became humans, hope turned to despair and what could have been a colorful life turned out to be a cold, lifeless body.
My family helped my sister coped up with the tragedy not knowing that I too was in trauma of the experience. In silence I transferred all the pain I felt into one journal. A journal containing all my plans for Tamar’s first, second until his seventh birthday. Every year I never miss adding something in that journal always thinking that it will be a grandiose day full of love, full of life, full of hope.
March 26, 2005 – that could have been Tamar’s seventh, when he will have his first bite of the lechon and remember its taste forever. Everyday in my life I know that I will never forget the time Tamar lived in this world, even if it was just for six months inside the warmth of my sister’s womb.
Yes, it’s been seven years but that will be the last time that I will prepare for his party. The last because I realized that birthdays should not just be planned and hidden in a lifeless journal waiting to be celebrated, wanting to be expressed and shared with. It was the last because I have lots of other birthdays to prepare – my parents, my cousins - loved-ones I totally disregarded all these years, including myself.
But above all these, last year was certainly the last simply because Tamar’s brother will be celebrating his first.
And that - to me - is more important.
After the first, my family considers the seventh birthday very important because to us this is the time when the child will be old enough to remember the fun of having a birthday party. As my Mom would have it, the first six birthday parties are actually for grownups because kids can’t have a bite of the lechon yet. Well I think she’s right because I don’t think anyone will ever remember what he/she ate during his/her first birthday party (that is if you were given something!) or what games he/she played in his/her third birthday party?
But when you’re seven, everything is like a wonderful surprise you always want to happen again and again and again; everything is so vivid and clear in your mind. And should you forget the important events that happened on that day at least you have your seven-year old visitors to help you remember.
Tamar, my nephew, will have his share of a grand seventh birthday party. Since I was tasked to prepare for the big event, everybody is expecting to see something different, something spectacular and extra ordinary. Known for giving surprises, my family will not discount the possibility that the cake will be tamarind-flavored, the games a combination of fresh eggs, water and paint and the decorations a splash of never-seen-before colors. The grandiose plans are all written in my journal and no one will ever know what these plans are - not even Tamar - not until his birthday comes.
Tamar will be seven, oh yes! And I’m already out of wits just thinking what other special things I need to put in to make it even more than just the best.
...But Tamar will never get to eat his tamarind-flavored birthday cake nor blow his special seven candles. He will never celebrate his seventh birthday. In fact, he will not celebrate even a first.
Just six months after she delivered Xenia, my sister learned that she’s pregnant again. Worried that her womb might not be strong enough to carry another baby, her doctors offered clinical abortion as an option. But she never considered this because she is more than just eager to see another wonder spring to life.
But the worries eventually came. I was reviewing for my CPA exams then when front desk told me to run to the hospital where my sister was rushed. Groggy and tired from sleepless nights of studying, I got alerted when I learned that my brother-in-law was still hours away and that I have to be in the operating room to witness the procedures that the doctors were going to perform.
In the operating room, I saw how doctors did all they could and were just seconds away from snatching the baby out of Joe Black’s hands when my sister felt what she described as a sound of a snapping rubber band. Exhausted and tired, my sister and I saw Tamar - a very handsome boy – raised and spanked only to be declared stillborn.
All these happened right in front of me. I, young and innocent at that time, witnessed how doctors became humans, hope turned to despair and what could have been a colorful life turned out to be a cold, lifeless body.
My family helped my sister coped up with the tragedy not knowing that I too was in trauma of the experience. In silence I transferred all the pain I felt into one journal. A journal containing all my plans for Tamar’s first, second until his seventh birthday. Every year I never miss adding something in that journal always thinking that it will be a grandiose day full of love, full of life, full of hope.
March 26, 2005 – that could have been Tamar’s seventh, when he will have his first bite of the lechon and remember its taste forever. Everyday in my life I know that I will never forget the time Tamar lived in this world, even if it was just for six months inside the warmth of my sister’s womb.
Yes, it’s been seven years but that will be the last time that I will prepare for his party. The last because I realized that birthdays should not just be planned and hidden in a lifeless journal waiting to be celebrated, wanting to be expressed and shared with. It was the last because I have lots of other birthdays to prepare – my parents, my cousins - loved-ones I totally disregarded all these years, including myself.
But above all these, last year was certainly the last simply because Tamar’s brother will be celebrating his first.
And that - to me - is more important.
posted by sunbinstripped at 7:58 PM
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