On Turning Fifty

For Kim

I don't really remember my fiftieth birthday.

I'm certain we celebrated with cake and a song. There were the usual cards and jokes about "getting old now."

Those things go with turning fifty. It's universal I suppose. I just don't really remember any of the particulars of the day.

I do remember another celebration of sorts. On October 21, 1976, in a motel outside St. Louis, I observed my dad's fiftieth birthday. I and several other men.

We had come to move a preacher and his family and all their worldly goods. Taking them back to Arkansas to pastor Lexa Baptist Church where my dad was a deacon.

There were maybe eight of us, and I seem to recall that all but one of the men were younger than my father.

Being brothers in Christ, they naturally ragged on Dad about becoming an old codger. He took it in good humor and ragged back, like you do.

I remember it also as being the only time in my adult life that I have shared a bed with another man. Not so strange among a group of guys who had mostly grown up poor, sharing beds with one or more brothers, usually until they married and owned their own beds.

Dad was my bedmate that night and complained next morning of my being all knees and elbows.

He passed on in June, 1998, six months before my own fiftieth birthday. I had thought it would be cool to share that with him as we had shared his, some twenty years previously.

I dare say, oldest daughter, that you don't feel any older than you did the day before your birthday. And certainly, I doubt if you feel "old."

That comes much later, in my experience, and is not really a thing to be dwelt upon overmuch. It's part of life, you know. There's a blessing that goes with it.

Our God never takes anything from our lives without giving something in return. Something always better, always richer, always calling us to remembrance of Him and His goodness.

Part of that is to be increasingly aware of the rising generation, those just starting their lives with their husbands, wives and children.

You've been where they are. You have wisdom to impart, though it will not always be received.

Someone once commented that our lives can seem like utter chaos, seemingly random events unfolding with little time to catch a breath.

Time, and may I add, faith, lend perspective. For the Christian, it is amazing to reflect upon what has been the revealing of God's perfect plan for our lives. Not that we have been perfect, but our Father in heaven certainly is.

So happy belated birthday, Kimbo, and many more.

Here's hoping and praying that your children will celebrate their own fiftieth birthdays in your presence.

Love,
dad