It Is Your Birthday!

I was fifteen, playing basketball after school on a springtime afternoon with friends at our local playground. Suddenly, my distraught mother showed up on the other side of the tall chain link fence. “Steven, Steven! It is your birthday! We forgot!” Indeed, even I had not noticed.

Today is my birthday. I am 66. At this age, I am sometimes amazed I am on earth and not somewhere else. There have been a few close calls with death, yet I escaped.

I had a dream once about leaving the planet for other realms. It was not long after my young daughter Naomi departed this life. I had sometimes taken to sleeping in her bed where she died. One night I dreamt this: I was outdoors on a wooded hillside. I looked down below to a small village. Suddenly I was there—standing on a street amidst a festival. People were walking about and I found myself holding hands with a little girl. Then she was gone. I saw a moving carousel and hopped on as it circled in place. The landscape swept by. As I stood rotating, a doorway appeared in front of me. I realized that I could get off the merry-go-round and into another world if I threw myself forward. The opportunity would not come again so I made the choice to jump. Immediately, as I hurled forward, I heard a voice in my left ear: “First you must do something more if you wish to pass beyond the door!” That same moment, I bolted upright in bed and struck my head against the rough plaster wall. I woke, bleeding from a gash on my forehead.

And so I stay active and alive on this merry-go-round earth revolving each day while it travels around the sun.

Wrapped In Wonder

Now that I am traveling again, the world speaks to me in new ways, and I listen. My parents have provided me a room, but it is barely large enough for a bed. I cannot fit my suitcase or clothes, so my belongings are half in their house and half in my car. In THE DREAM, material things are of no concern, for it is consciousness of unfolding time and events that are most important. It seems the moments are wrapped in wonder.

It is a revelation to me how my parents have slowed so significantly. Both of them are acutely aware of and concerned for each other. “Age does not protect you from love, but love to some extent protects you from age.” Jeanne Moreau (Fr. born 1928). Their dog is a fixture, and after my mother prepares the food, my father gets down on his knees to hand feed the old creature. Each day they carry forth; last night my mother prepared dinner for ten people, and my father does 20 minutes of difficult calisthenics each morning when he awakes, and continues working from his home office.Since we are living together, we take three meals and a nap each day. I walk the dog with my father. It is funny to think I am going to raucous Rio De Janeiro and carnival in a few weeks; something opposite of the life I am now living.

I am able to see myself in my parents, and get a close-up picture of aging. One thing I realize is that in youth we take our strength and stamina for granted and push forth with many projects. But in old age, as the body weakens, people are often forced to pay less attention to what they want to do and more attention to the simple task of getting from point A to point B, and surviving another day.
Really, in the scheme of eternity, a human life of 90 years is less than a blink of an eye. My dear daughter Naomi died when she was nineteen, and my father might part when he is eighty-five . . . it is essentially the same length of time: less than the flash of light from a falling star.
Here is a video clip from The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, honoring my father, Richard W. Boone: Video