A parent instinctively knows how important it is to
celebrate a child’s birthday—how much they look forward to it, how loved and
appreciated it makes them feel. Back in the days of wine and wooing, I would
spend a considerable amount of time coming up with an assortment of serious and
silly gifts for my wife on her birthday, an eventful approach that we both enjoyed. That hasn’t happened in a while, however, as we’ve let out our
birthdays slip way down on the priority list, and this year I was particularly
delinquent. —
What bad form! I basically gathered a grab bag of gifts on the fly
while en route to joining my wife and kids for dinner. Hello Sur La Table–I’ll take a gift certificate please. Wow, Starbucks, you have the
new Springsteen CD. One, please. Bluemercury, you look like a nice perfumery. Please spray me. I can’t tell if it’s enough. Better get another gift certificate. So, yes, I
showed up bearing gifts (and not bad ones), but everyone knew it was a rush job, and—double bad form—no card either.
After dinner, we brought home a
bag of black-and-white-cookies, and while my wife was fielding a birthday phone
call from her brother my kids and I ended up devouring all the cookies before she even got to eat one. (I had set aside one for her, but one of our devils “forgot”
it was hers.) It was one blow too many.
“What the hell kind of birthday is
this?” she yelled—and when she put it that way, I realized she was right.
A co-worker wonders why I dropped the ball so badly.
The crux of it, I think, is that I was selfish and stupid. How’s that? There
are some ways in which I’m very good at honoring my wife and our relationship,
but this wasn’t one of them. I lost track. We need our rituals, especially our birthday celebrations. We may be adults now, but it’s still nice to know that people care.
I’ve vowed to do much better next year, and am also
considering a surprise “re-do.” Can I re-gift my gifts? Just kidding…
