"BIRTHDAY: A SONG OF MYSELF"

 "BIRTHDAY! A SONG OF MYSELF"

    Yesterday was my 76th birthday - I never thought that I would live this long, but I am grateful that I have. I want to take a moment in this blog to "celebrate myself," as Walt Whitman put it so well in his "A Song of Myself:"

"I celebrate myself, and sing myself,

And what I assume you shall assume,

For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,

I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air,

Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,

I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,

Hoping to cease not till death."

    

        Granting that I am not 37, I am still grateful to be able to give thanks, to work and to witness.  I am

grateful for all my birthdays, but I want to cite four that come to mind today.  The first one in my memory

is a birthday somewhere in early junior high school (our segregated school on Columbia Street

encompassed 4-8th grades).  I received a bicycle for my birthday, but I was scared to admit that I was not 

sure about trying to ride it.  My self esteem was so low that I was afraid that I would be a big failure, and 

that I would be exposed.  My cousin Brown came to my rescue.  Sensing my anxiety (as he often did),  he 

told me: "Nibs, you can do this - just get up on it and try it. "  So, I did, and he gave me a push to go 

down a hill by my house.  Unfortunately, he had forgotten (intentionally?) to tell me how to use the hand 

brakes, so I went over into a small ditch.  I was not hurt, however, and I got up grateful to have tried it.  

Brown was laughing as I rode it back up the hill, and I laughed too.

        When I was a year or two older, my mother allowed me to have a sock-hop, dancing-to-records party 

at our house.  I was surprised because our house was so small and because I did not know that my mother 

was so hip!  We pushed all the furniture back in the living room/dining room combo, and we had girls  

and boys over.  A lot of people came, and I kissed a girl for the first time, behind our living room 

couch.   One of my lesbian friends once replied to my question: "When did you decide to become 

attracted to girls?" with the answer "About the same age as you did."  It took me a moment to see her 

point.  Before that birthday party, girls were something to avoid.  Now my world had changed.

    My third birthday memory is my 50th, a milestone in so many ways.  For that birthday, our 

longtime friend Inez Giles wanted to throw a party for me at a night club called The Tropical Vibes.  We 

had a great time!  We danced to island music, and Angela Giles (Inez's oldest daughter) and I won the 

dance contest, doing the twist.  In the middle of the party, I was ushered into the bathroom, and when I 

came back out, everyone at the party had on face masks with my photo on the mask!  It was like seeing 80 

of me - a scary thought!  I am so grateful to Inez, who has continued to host a birthday party for me every 

year since, except for 2 years.  She has encouraged me to sing a song of myself, and I have tried to do it.

    My fourth birthday memory is from 2016 when I turned 70.  I had announced in 2015 that I would 

retire in mid-January of 2017, and Oakhurst Church gave me a huge and lavish retirement party the 

weekend before Thanksgiving.  We had a great time, with speakers including Congressman Hank 

Johnson, Stacey Abrams, Dekalb County Commissioner Mereda Davis Johnson, Decatur Mayor Patti 

Garrett, Dr. Keisha Scales, Dr. Chris Boesel, and many others.  Our kids David and Susan also told stories 

and created a song for the occasion.  David and Erin and Emma and Zoe would not be able to return to 

Georgia for Christmas, so in that week, we crammed in my retirement, my birthday, Thanksgiving, and 

on the Friday after Thanksgiving, we put up the tree and celebrated Christmas - quite a week!

So, happy birthday to me - I give thanks to all of you, to circles of friends and family and church who 

have helped me understand that I am a child of God.  Thank you!