OutSpoken

It’s my birthday today.  One year added to my age.  As for myself, this is just an ordinary day of transition from being 30 to 31, which became special because of family and friends who greeted.  I got a tight hug from my hubby, sweet kisses and birthday song from my kids, an overseas call from my family and greetings from relatives, friends and colleagues.  They made my birth-day special!!!  Thanks for remembering, guys! 

When I became a mother, I think of birthdays as the celebrant’s mother’s birthday as well or as I call it, her re-Birth Day.  I know not everyone feels the same way otherwise the way kid’s birthday celebrations are done would have been celebrated differently.  I still followed the traditional way of throwing birthday party when my kids turned one (the succeeding birthdays were more of a family affair) but I celebrate my children’s birthdays on a different intellectual and emotional plane.

There is a saying that ‘nakabaon sa hukay ang isang paa ng nanay kapag nanganganak’.  It is true.  During giving birth to my first child, I thought I’d die because the labor pain was not something ordinary (ask any mother about it).  The pains were too intense that I almost thought I’d never make it.  In fact, it was so unbearable that after 12 hours of labor pain and an almost-near-death-experience (I have a very low pain threshhold – ask Ge), I had to undergo a CS.  Then I realized how much aches and pains my mother had gone through before I was born and after.  A mother puts her own life to risk during delivery. And I knew of some mothers who lost their own lives while giving birth and after giving birth.  So whenever this day comes or when my siblings’s birthday comes, I celebrate to commemorate the day my mother gave birth to us her children, and the day she was given another life to spend with us her children.