Remember Whensday: Birthday Celebrations

From birth to age eighteen, a girl needs good parents.
From eighteen to thirty-five, she needs good looks.
From thirty-five to fifty-five, she needs a good personality.
From fifty-five on, she needs good cash.
Sophie Tucker

There is nothing more special to a child than a birthday. Most three year olds are able to hold up the appropriate number of fingers which indicate their age. Birthday parties, whether with friends or family, are an important part of growing up. Eventually we wish we could stop counting the years and then we begin marking the milestone birthdays of old age.

Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional.
Chili Davis

Celebrating anyone's birthday is fun when favourite foods and cake are served. Because we lived far from our relatives, my first brother and I had more pictures taken of our birthdays than were taken of our younger brothers.

An old woman loved is winter with flowers
German Proverb

But we were all present for the 90th birthday celebration of our great grandmother, Granny Hackett and undoubtedly helped her blow out all those candles and eat that big cake. She died four years later at a good old age, loved by her family.

In childhood, we yearn to be grown-ups.
In old age, we yearn to be kids.
It just seems that all would be wonderful if we didn't have to
celebrate our birthdays in chronological order.
Robert Brault

My husband is the young boy in this picture at the birthday party of someone in his extended family. The table is shared by young and old together as it should be. Life is worth celebrating and birthdays should be counted as a blessing and the best of our memories.

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Photo 1: My 6th birthday. I am in a white dress in the centre of the photo, South Africa 1961
Photo 2: My 5th birthday and my brother's 4th birthday, South Africa 1960
Photo 3: Granny's 90th, Canada 1970 with my four brothers and young cousin. I am sitting in the far right and my grandmother is standing with Granny (her mother)
Photo 4: Undated photo, likely about 1960, Canada
Click on photos to enlarge