The Birthday Gift That Gets Better Every Year

BY Joyce Vissell, New Dimensions of Relationship newsletter, June 2009, reprinted with permission

“The more beauty we can see in others, the more beauty we can see in ourselves. As we hold fast to the beauty in others, so do we also become beautiful.”
— The Shared Heart, p. 58

See Celebrating My Birthday in the column on the right

I love birthdays. I love to give cards and simple thoughtful presents and call people on their birthday. I also love it when people remember me on my birthday. When people send me cards or emails I save them for a long time, reading them over and over again. When people call and wish me a happy birthday I am apt to save the messages for many months. As nice as it is to receive love on my birthday, it gives me greater joy to give my love to people on their birthdays.

Thirty three years ago I was a new mother with a seven week old baby girl, totally unprepared for how busy I would be. Sleepless nights had left me dragging around our little home yearning for even a little bit of relaxation. It was the day before Barry’s birthday. Typically I would be able to shop for his present, make a very special dinner or have exciting plans in order. I had nothing! What could I give him? I didn’t have the strength to take our baby out shopping or make a nice dinner for him. We had been living on a simple diet of salads, brown rice and vegetables.

While I nursed my daughter Rami, I contemplated my dilemma. I loved doing arts and crafts and had plenty of supplies, but I knew Rami would not enjoy being put down long enough for me to even start something. What was I to do to honor the man I loved so much? After Rami finished nursing I walked her around the house just looking around hoping to get ideas. My eyes happened to fall on an old brown journal book my dad had given me, something that had been given to him long ago which he realized he would never use. The pages were blank and he thought I might like to write in it. I had stuck it in the bookshelf and forgot about it. I took it out. It was a little musty, but ideas began to form in my mind.

On Barry’s birthday, there was no special dinner and no exciting plans, but I did have a present all wrapped up. As Barry was unwrapping it he looked at me quizzically and said, “When did you have time to buy me a present?” He looked even more confused when he saw the old brown book. He opened it to the first page which read, “To my beloved Barry on your birthday. Your gift today is the gift of my words of love for you. Each and every year that I am able I shall write in this book on your birthday to tell you how much I love you. I feel so deeply honored to be your wife and closest friend. I am so grateful to be sharing this life with you and now sharing the gift of parenting together…” I then went on to tell him all the things I appreciated about him. Barry loved this present so much that he asked if he could also write in it on my birthdays.

And that’s how an unusual tradition has started. Each year on our birthdays we receive the gift of the old brown book. It now has 33 years of birthday entries and 33 years of appreciations and adoring messages. Barry is more of a poet than me. He writes, “To see the petals of a rose unfold is to hint at the glory of your opening heart. Yet unlike the fully blossomed rose whose petals then begin to fall away, the petals of your heart keep opening wider and wider.” My birthday messages are simpler, listing all the ways I appreciate him. The style really doesn’t matter. What matters is that the book has become a treasured item. It truly gets richer and more meaningful year by year.

Last June our family was ordered by the county sheriff to evacuate our home due to an approaching wildfire. We had just a half hour to sort through all of our belongings and decide what we wanted to bring with us. Surprisingly our pile of stuff was very little: photos and art work by and of our children, a few clothes, a laptop computer, and of course one very important item – a shabby old brown book.

Two years ago my mother passed from this world to join my father. It was then up to me to sort through all of their stuff. My mother loved books and, as I was going through them all, I came across a little book with a smiley face on it. As I opened it I was drawn to the first page and a note from my mother, “Dear Joyce, I am starting to write in this little book shortly after you were born. I am going to write all things I love about being your mother. Each page will be filled with my gratitude. I will try to always express this gratitude to you in words. However someday you will not be able to hear my voice and I want you to know how much I love you and love being your mother.” The book was filled with writings from my mother about her journey of parenting me. There were many physical things I inherited from my mother, but this little book with the smiley face upon it is by far the greatest.

Someday, after Barry and I have left this world, our three children will be sorting through our possessions. They will come to a little brown book that is not very attractive. Hopefully they will open it up and be able to read about two parents who deeply loved each other. I hope this book will be as much of a treasure to them as it has been to the two of us.

Joyce and Barry Vissell, a nurse and medical doctor couple since 1964 whose medicine is now love, are the authors of The Shared Heart, Models of Love, Risk To Be Healed, The Heart’s Wisdom and Meant To Be.

To learn more about them, call toll-free 1-800-766-0629 (locally 831-684-2299) or write to the Shared Heart Foundation, P.O. Box 2140, Aptos, CA 95001, for free newsletter from Barry and Joyce, further information on counseling sessions by phone or in person, their books, recordings or their schedule of talks and workshops. Visit their web site at www.sharedheart.org/ for their free monthly e-heartletter, their updated schedule, and inspiring past articles on many topics about relationship and living from the heart.

© Copyright 2009

CELEBRATING MY BIRTHDAY

Three e-mails came across my desk in the past two weeks that have given me an idea of what I want to write for this page on celebration of birthdays, which is being written the day before my birthday.

1. First is the article on the left, written by Joyce Vissell, half of the exceptional counseling team of Joyce and Barry Vissell. For several years they have given me permission to use their excellent advice for couples. In this article she talks about a notebook that became the focus for using birthdays to notice the blessings that year (and all of life) have given them.

2. The second e-mail came from a woman who often sends me interesting and inspirational pieces. This was by Regina Brett, 90 years old, who wrote in The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio, that, "To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me. It is the most-requested column I've ever written."

The list contained many aphorisms and affirmations that have been attributed to lots of people, sometimes with the same words and other times the words are slightly different. After all, how many ways can you say, “No one is in charge of your happiness but you”?

For this birthday I decided to share a few from her list that most resonated with me because they have been lessons that were particularly valuable for me to learn, or ones I am still trying to put into practice:

Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.

Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.

Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.

Yield.

You don't have to win every argument.

Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special.

3. The third communication came from my brother, John, whose 75th birthday I celebrated by creating my very first video. He wrote about his family’s get-together to celebrate the occasion and shared how much he had to stretch himself over the years in the process of entering into the lives of others as they struggled with problems in their lives. (He was a psychologist and human resources specialist before retiring.)

The same is true for me. Since becoming a therapist, I have learned as much about myself when counseling others as I have learned outside the therapy office working on my issues by myself. And in writing books and offering advice on my websites, I have deepened my understanding of the subjects about which I write. (It's a little disconcerting to discover that opinions I once stated so firmly were built on less than firm ground, a fact that which could only be understood as I got older.)

As I celebrate my birthday this year, I am reminded once again of the passing of time (an image of a calendar with pages flying off comes to mind).

How do I look upon the aging process as I jump from one birthday to the next? To answer that, I can go back to several years ago when I posed four questions for readers to consider about their age:

What do I like most about my age?

What do I like least about my age?

What do I do to lessen the difficulties associated with my age?

What are your concerns for your next stage of life?

I hesitate telling you my age, because so many people judge others by their chronological age, but I'll tell you anyway. Tomorrow I turn 74. At one time that seemed absolutely ancient, but I don't feel nearly as old as I thought I would when I was younger (even ten years younger). But since there's nothing one can do about it, I have to keep plugging forward and make the most of it.

So if you want to know how I feel about being 74, you can read My Experience at Age 70, because I feel the same today.

The pleasure of reaching this age is that as I've gotten older, I realize that I have truly found my path in life (it's about time I did). And as I learn to live more fully in the moment, I know that I am “following my bliss,” as Joseph Campbell recommended many years ago.

I believe there are two requirements for a full life at any age. Learn and love. I try to do both. The more years I have, the more I can learn and the more I can love. Getting older has its rewards in being able to know how to put into practice what one learns and how to make the world a better place by loving others more effectively.

— By Arlene Harder, June 2009