My Great Birthday

It’s my birthday today.  Not birthday month; my actual birthday.  The day I was born.  My mom has told me the story of my birth before; and every so often I ask her to repeat it.  I’m a real Southerner.  I was born in South America, in Peru.  My parents were not well to do.  They didn’t have insurance.  They couldn’t afford to go to a hospital.  It was a weekday when it happened.  My father was at work.  My eldest sister, at 6 years old, was in school.  My other brother and sister, not school-age yet, were on the first floor of the house – they were not permitted on the second floor where mom was in labor.  Only Señora Rosita, our neighbor from down the block, would be allowed upstairs to help my mom prepare and await the visit of the neighborhood doctor.  He made house calls for the ladies who could not afford delivering at a hospital. This day he was not in a rush being that my mom was multiparous.  What in the hey is that you ask?  Multiparous is a woman who has given birth to more than one child!  Yep, that’s how they used to talk back then!

It was lunch time.  I think that has something to do with the fact that I have an ongoing love affair with food.  I was born at lunch time and I was born fat.  Fat round legs and butt, fat arms and neck, and the roundest face crowned with a head full of dark hair.  My mom said I never stretched out; I came out looking like a ball with hair. Does that not just sound too precious??!! 

But seriously, I can’t thank God enough for these years He’s given me.  I feel so incredibly blessed with my children, my mother, my siblings, my family, my extended family, my church family, my spiritual family, my very best and close friends, so many friends, co-workers - great people all around me who support me, appreciate me and show me their love in so many ways.  I’m truly blessed today and always. It’s a great birthday indeed!