2024/18 MARCH 5th

This morning, fresh from the shower, I dug out my almost empty bottle of Norell perfume, the kind my mother used to wear, and spritzed it on the nape of my neck, my underarms and wrists, rubbing my inner arms together like Mom used to do. All day long I lift my hand to my face and she comes to visit me. I kinda think, on our birthdays, maybe our moms get to pause in their Heaven journey and peek in on us down here on our earth journeys, those of us who sprang from them into humanness.

Mom and her two youngest, Libby and me.

March 5^th is a nicely balanced day for me. Kind of a Yin/Yang thing. It’s in that sweet spot between winter and spring. The days are getting longer and the sunsets more drawn-out.  I spend my energy thinking about the woman who gave me birth and the woman to whom I gave birth on this day. Mom labored to give me life in a house-turned-maternity-home in Shelley Idaho. Am I remembering correctly that it was Grandma Jensen who helped open the door and welcome me in? I can’t remember my first March 5^th. 

But I do remember my 22^nd March 5^th. Not wanting to overspend time in the hospital I labored at home, blowing my Lamaze breath onto the star in a constellation poster in the bedroom of the house we were renting in upstate New York. The baby, just 15 months after my first baby, was making an unexpected entrance. She was due three weeks later. Now here she was (we didn’t know in those days if it was a he or she. The ultimate surprise package) making herself manifest to the world. We barely made it to Rochester General Hospital.

I love sharing my day with my Sarah Love. She turns my focus to the best I can give rather than what I might receive. This year I strongly announced to my family that I need absolutely nothing… no “thing” at all. I'm thinged out! Shared experience is all I want. I recognize that a goodly portion of the people I cherish most in this world may not be walking this path with me all that much longer, either because they’ll be gone or I’ll be gone. It doesn’t bother me to the level of intense distress because I have faith our relationships continue beyond this realm. But it does make me cherish this portion of my eternal existence and those who share it with me. I sure like my people.

Right now I’m thinking of my eldest daughter, my Sarah. She’s as wonderful and real and flawed and hopeful as any creature God made. She’s a blessing to four wonderful children who follow her, and all of us who have watched her grow from the floppy little newborn into a magnificent, intelligent and capable force for good. She is the best birthday gift I ever received, and the best I ever gave

Sarah Corinne Connors Petersen M.D.

Birthday girls.