Saturday, November 24, 2007

Is McGarrett in the house?

(Cue the music, the hula dancer, and the breaking wave...)
Yesterday was my big five-oh.
When I was diagnosed with diabetes when I was two, my mother was told I would be lucky to see my 16th birthday. However, my mother was an RN who had been trained at a nursing school associated with the Mayo Clinic, and had been there when the clinic was doing diabetes studies. In addition, her mother was Polish to the core, so you never gave Mom a challenge she didn't want to hear. So here I am having beaten that deadline 3 times over, and while my health could be better, I have not been a victim of most diabetic side effects of kidney failure, blindness, and loss of digits.
I have always have had fix feelings about the timing of my birthday. Because of its proximity to Thanksgiving, my family often moved the celebration to the holiday so I've had turkeys and pumpkin pies with candles on them. (Parents, if you have children whose birthdays are close to holidays please keep the birthday distinct from the holiday and special in its own right. In my case, the birthday was celebrated second to the holiday so the special-ness was lost).
My worst birthday was my sixth. It was the day after November 22, 1963.
But now after a half century of life, I can appreciate how blessed I have been. I've seen men on the moon, I have been involved with personal computers from the beginning, and I had one of the first money machine cards. I can also proudly say I have never owned a cell phone! (although my phone service is over the Internet. Geek 2 da core!) I have seen my nieces and nephews grow from mere gleams in their parents' eyes to fine young men and women. And I've earned every grey hair in my beard!
Will I see another 50? God alone knows, although my doctors are pestering me into lifestyle changes so I may get the chance.

13 comments:

~pen~ said...

happiest of belated birthdays to you!!

here's to 5-0 more, God willing :)

Adrienne said...

Happy Birthday -- Nice to hear from you:)

My birthday is New Year's Eve and my Mom was always careful to keep Christmas, New Years, and birthday completely seperate events.

ArchAngel's Advocate said...

Thanks for the good wishes!

Puff the Magic Dragon said...

Many happy returns of the day

Anonymous said...

PS...if you celebrate your birthday in Canada it won't confict with Thanksgiving because ours is in October!

ArchAngel's Advocate said...

Thanks all for the b-day wishes.

PS. Angela, is it true that I would be younger because Canada's metric? LOL

Anonymous said...

Michael, not sure about the metric LOL but you'd be older if you celebrated earlier!

Puff the Magic Dragon said...

NO you would be younger because Canada has a 25 hour day. hehehehe

swissmiss said...

Happy belated birthday! Just coming by to say hi after you commented on my blog.
My husband's family has diabetes, primarily because of weight (hubby's mom and grandmother) but also his cousin who is skinny as a rail. He wasn't diagnosed with it until he was in his 20s though.
I know how you feel about having your birthday close to a big holiday. Mine is Christmas Eve and is greatly overshadowed by someone else whose birthday is the next day :) My kids share the same birthday (August 12).
May you have many more healthy and happy birthdays!

The Digital Hairshirt said...

Michael,

I have to rely on the kindness of others to remind me when people's birthdays come up - at this point in my life, it is only Katie's and Patrick's that I pay any attention to (although the neighbors do gather on our front lawn on February 2nd to see whether Mark comes out and sees his shadow).

Happy belated birthday!

ArchAngel's Advocate said...

Thanks. I suspect that the only shadow they see is the 5 o'clock kind. LOL

Unknown said...

Well, my birthday is December 15th. . .

Raised in a non religious household I thought the Christmas tree (which was always put up on my birthday) was for me and we just left it up for a really long time and I got my birthday presents late. As i got older, I hated combo Christmas/birthday gifts.

ArchAngel's Advocate said...

Kat, I have an uncle (only a couple of years older than me) whoi has one on 12/28. Talk about being between a rock & a hard place (Christmas & New Years)