BIRTHDAY BLUES vs GRATITUDE

He woke up bleary eyed and stared up at the ceiling, or more accurately, straight through the space where a ceiling should have been, at the rough wooden beams holding up the roof.

He blinked. This wasn’t his ‘ceiling’.

Then he remembered.

 He wasn’t at home, under his roof, on his bed, beside his wife, waiting for his kids to come interrupt his early morning moments, when those last sweet vestiges of sleep are being dragged away by the dawning day and the subconscious mind clings on for dear bliss.

No, he was on yet another rural assignment, sent to a village outpost who had ‘settled’ his h.o.d to send one of his ‘boys’ as a way to avoid employing and paying a full time doctor for them, posted away from friends, family and civilisation in the name of providing health services to communities in need of skilled doctors, not the usual ‘local champions’ who, after some form of short apprenticeship or the other, proudly but criminally wore the title ‘doctor’ , or ‘ortuwe’ in the local parlance, while dishing out questionable prescriptions and performing misguidedly heroic but ultimately crude surgical procedures…

He paused his rant, chiding himself for being so negative so early in the morning.

Yes, he thought, it was early in the morning. He turned to check the time via the mobile phone on the floor beside the half-decrepit  bed.

 4.30 a.m.

He squinted again, just to make sure. Yep, same time.

He sat up and listened, wondering what could have roused him way ahead of his usual alarm time of 5.30 a.m.

Had there been a knock on his door, a summons to attend to some emergency at the medical centre? No, nothing.

He called out, just to make sure. No reply.

He shrugged and lay back down, then activated the slide mechanism on his phone to see if that was the culprit responsible for his arousal.

Sure enough, there were notifications pending.

He put the phone back down, prepared and determined to catch the last available waves of sleep before the day caught up with him. Then sighed and picked it up again.

They could be important, he thought.

He opened the 1^st one. A text, from his wife, wishing him a happy birthday.

He blinked again. Today was his birthday?

Today was his birthday.

Today was his birthday and he was alone in a strange bed in a strange village eating strange food and battling to understand a strange tongue...

 It wasn’t the 1^st time he’d been alone on his birthday.

He had bagged his 1^st re-sit in medical school, an alien experience to him considering all the awards and accolades that filled his mothers ‘treasure chest’ back home… an alien experience, and a sobering one. He hadn’t taken it very well, even though he hid his depression admirably.  He had gone home to spend a week recovering from the exertions of the just concluded exams, then decided to travel back to school well ahead of the scheduled re-sit program. He’d told his parents he wanted to start preparations early, but in truth he just wanted to be alone.

So he left 1^st thing the morning of his 23^rd birthday and spent the day sitting alone in his hostel room feeling sorry for himself.

Not his finest moment. Not his fondest birthday memory.

He fought back the returning sea of negativity. 

Well, back then I didn’t have her, he thought to himself as he read her text again, a smile cracking his lips for the first time that day.

He started going through the other messages, a smattering of well wishes from the early birds, a few comments on a pic he’d uploaded, a couple of newsletters and the usual spam mail or two.

It was his birthday.

He’d had a few now, to be sure, as he inched ever closer to the big 4-0. 

Wasn’t that when they said life begins, he thought? 

He wondered where he’d be, what he’d be, on his 40^th birthday.

He got out of the half-decrepit bed and walked over to the only other furniture in the room, an equally half-decrepit table and chair.

Might as well get in an hour or two of studying, since I’m already up, he thought, as he booted up his laptop, smiling as the now familiar superman shield glowed reassuringly on his wallpaper.

People always asked him what the deal was with all the superman stuff. He’d have to address it comprehensively on his blog one of these days.

He was interrupted by his phone chiming. Another text, this one from his parents. 

For years, they’d always been the first to wish him a happy birthday. 

It was a family tradition growing up that the entire household would march together into the celebrants’ room to wake them up to a rousing rendition of ‘happy birthday to you’, usually sung with varying degrees of enthusiasm, from a sibling yawning through the octaves, to the proud, beaming parents doing their best operatic impressions. Then came all the semi-embarrassing hugging and kissing (which he secretly loved) followed by the best part – presentation of gifts.

Good times.

He wondered at how the gift culture had been slowly eroded over time to the point where, for the overwhelming majority of people, an abbreviated ‘HBD’ or any other innumerable number of barely decipherable variants on your facebook wall was about as personal as it got.

He was glad his family still did the gift thing, with all the subtle hints (which grew increasingly less subtle as the day drew closer) as to which gifts were on the celebrants’ wishlist.

He thought back on some of the gifts he’d gotten over the years…

He smiled again, taking in the warmth and positive vibrations of all the happy memories that flooded in.

He had a lot to be thankful for.

He’d had a good life.

He pulled up one of his newest playlists, featuring some of his current favourite ccm bands, and let the sounds of good music wash over him as he sank to his knees, lifting his hands and eyes to the One at the centre of it all.

And he gave thanks.

He gave thanks for the gift of another day, a day that culminated the gift of another year, and the joy of drawing breath without aches, pains or effort. In his line of work he knew better than to take the gift of life and health for granted, especially in a time when the fear of disease had people bathing in salt.

He gave thanks for family. His wife, a good woman who brought light to his darkest days, saw more in him than he’d ever seen in himself, an epitome of grace, beauty, love and compassion. The very embodiment of proverbs 31. He’d be lost without her; His children, bundles of love and joy and endless trust and optimism, reminding him every day of all the core ingredients of simple Christianity; His parents, whose love, sacrifice and discipline had laid down a godly example as a template for his own life; His siblings, loving, gifted, unique, always there for him no matter the time or distance; His in-laws, a wonderful, beautiful family that he never stopped being grateful for.

He gave thanks for friends, new and old. Daniel, Emma, Pius, Jude, Funsho, Danjuma, John, Chris, Matt, Vanessa, Kd, Pei, ……. Names reeled off his tongue as he tried to list as many as he could, people who had enriched his life through various seasons, who had touched him deeply and kept alive his faith in humanity, who had been honest when they needed to be, who had laughed and wept and worried and danced with him. People he would never, ever forget.

He gave thanks for mentors. Men of faith and family who looked to the nourishing and thriving of his spirit and soul, who helped to bring out his potential and help him be the man he could be. Men who had stormed the gates of hell itself, with him and for him.

He gave thanks for his teachers. They had laid the foundations for him to find self-expression and give a voice to in-born talents and gifts.

He gave thanks for music. There always seemed to be an appropriate soundtrack for every episode of his life. Artists and bands like Third day, Newsboys, Jars of Clay, for King and Country, Audio Adrenaline, Mercy Me, Lecrae, Trip Lee, Da T.R.U.T.H, Alex Faith, KB, Warren Barfield, Brandon Heath and so many more had seen him through heights of ecstasy and depths of depression. Music made EVERYTHING better.

He gave thanks for movies. The wonderful world of moving pictures had given him countless hours of joy, taking him into worlds and wars he’d never dream of in real life, letting him be the hero that saves the day, the guy who gets the girl, the mentor with the sage advice, the protégé who makes his mentor proud, the friend with the quick wit and funny quips, the stranger with the steady arm and thoughtful word.

He gave thanks for books. Texts had broadened his knowledge and helped unlock his potential, novels had enthralled and entertained and unleashed his imagination. They had helped forged his bond with words, fostering a unity with the pen and a joy in writing that he always looked forward to with unbridled relish.

He gave thanks for comics. Their colourful world had made a young boy look up in the sky and believe a man can fly, making him strive for the extra-ordinary, no longer satisfied with the mundane. Knowing, believing, that a man can always do better, be better, make a difference. Be a hero, be somebody’s hero, even without the suit and cape.

He knelt there, in that dingy little room by that half-decrepit bed in that strange land and gave thanks, for all the things in the past that had helped mould his present, the triumphs and tragedies, the joy and mourning, the people and places, the things and thoughts, the experiments and experiences, everything that made him the man he was today.

Then he got up with a determined smile on his face, and his back was a little bit straighter, and his shoulders were a little bit squarer, and his heart was a little bit lighter as he walked out into the future…