On April 3, 1998, I turned seven years old. My mom and dad rented out the local skating rink and I got to invite all my friends from school and all my friends from church to come dance to the Macarena on skates and eat cake.
It was the first birthday party I’d ever had beyond my grandparents coming over to the house for my chosen birthday meal (I swear I picked grilled cheeses at least a couple of years) and cake. Birthdays were never a big deal for me. I mean, cake and presents are cool, but there was always this weird phenomenon of bad luck that seemed to follow me no matter the year. Age seven was when the bad luck multiplied exponentially.
Before that year, the bad luck emerged as little things. I’d miss out on making the cake with my mom, something I always looked forward to. Or I’d spill my drink on my favorite shirt. Or my grandma would nag me about something despite it being my birthday. Things I missed or let slide. At least, I let them slide until I realized at age seven that birthdays are just bad luck.
I forgot to mention one thing about my first birthday party at age seven. It doubled as a going-away party because later that year in July, my family moved an hour away. Brand new school, brand new church, brand new house, brand new everything. Happy Birthday Shannon! And don’t forget to say goodbye to all your friends! Yay!
I have a whole lifetime of bad luck birthday stories. It’s to the point that I’ve strongly considered writing a book full of short stories about all of them. I haven’t because it would just be depressing. As I’ve grown older, my birthdays have gotten more interesting, more pathetic, more empty. My only other birthday party, age ten, nobody came except two of my friends because of a thunderstorm. My thirteenth birthday, I pierced my ears and it fucking hurt. It wasn’t as exciting or cool as I’d hoped. They are no longer pierced because ouch. My fourteenth birthday, my boyfriend and I got into a fight. My sixteenth birthday, some cheap-ass necklace from my birthmother came in the mail, and my parents didn’t say a word about it. My twentieth birthday, my grandmother in Montana died. My twenty-first birthday, I got two presents, a bible and a bong. The bible came with a lecture. The bong didn’t come with the accessories. I could go on, but I won’t.
For the longest time, I wondered, “is it just me? Why do I have such bad luck on my birthday?” It took me forever to figure it out. But at least it isn’t just me that wants to hide under a rock until the damn day passes.
Nope. For me and adopted children like me, there’s something missing on birthdays.
I didn’t realize what I’d been missing until I began giving it to my daughter. Every year on her birthday, I tell her the story of her birth.
THAT’S THE LITERAL DEFINITION OF CELEBRATING A BIRTHDAY.
She hears about how Daddy ate McDonalds in front of me when he knew I had to be fasting, how her Grandma sat in the room with me and brought me water, how I cried when I saw her, how her Daddy cried when he saw her. She likes to hear it. She asks questions and I answer.
“Did you feel my feet inside your tummy?”
“Yep, they were right here,” and I’ll point to the right side of my ribcage.
“And did it hurt when I came out?”
“Yeah, it hurt.”
“And did I drink milk from your boobs?”
“Yeah, but only for a while. You had a lip-tie.” I’ll show her the piece of gum on the top of her two front teeth.
“Will you sing the song you sang to me?”
And I’ll sing her the song from the Tarzan soundtrack.
That story, the actual story of the event of birth, is something my daughter has but I don’t. When people inevitably ask me to write a memoir because of some of my stories, I laugh because where the hell am I supposed to start? Any beginning to my life story begins like a goddamn myth.
I usually tell it something like this: I was born on April 3, 1991 in a San Antonio hospital and two days later, my parents picked me up and took me home.
I’ve experimented with it more here lately, but it still rings empty.
My Korean cousins have a neat tradition that I sometimes envy. It’s called a homecoming day. Every year they get two birthdays; the first is the day they were born and it consists of cake and presents, the usual. But the second is their homecoming day, and their parents tell the stories of how each of them came home, tell them about the culture they came from, tell them everything they know.
For me, I didn’t get a special day like this. I came from Texas (or I was born in Texas, at least), so I don’t have a culture to tell of, and the story of me coming home is in shards and pieces.
“I kept looking back at you in the backseat to check if you were breathing,” my mom would tell me, reliving the moment when she finally had a child of her own and had no idea how to take care of it.
“I think your birthmother had to stay a day or two after we’d left; she must have gotten sick or something,” my dad would say after reflection. But only if I asked.
You asked where more stories should be told. My answer is at the birthday parties of adopted children. Tell them where they came from, tell them why they matter, tell them it’s okay to acknowledge the painful past. Tell them that they are worth celebrating. And for the love of all that is holy, tell them that it isn’t bad luck that’s happening to them on their birthdays. It’s the realization of the lack of one of the most important stories in their lives.
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