On September 1 – my birthday – I poured a cup of coffee and started up my computer. I checked e-mail, 
then Facebook, and discovered many greetings. What a great way to start the day! I replied to each of them, considering the Mad Hatter’s idea of an Un-birthday. Just think. A birthday every day (but no aging)!
About noon I went on-line again and read a wonderful poem by Billy Collins in The Writers’ Almanac (see my blogroll). Then I noted the first historical reminder in The Almanac was “Today is the anniversary of the attack that began World War II…”
Now, I’ve gone 65 years without knowing that!
Up to this point the only thing special about my birthday (besides that it is sometimes Labor Day, which I find quite ironic) was when my 14-year-old boyfriend said it was the first day of dove season. The animal lover in me hated that. Now suddenly I know that 9 years to the day, before I was born, a terrible war started halfway around the world. Thanks, PBS. Sometimes ignorance IS bliss.
Do we consider what happened in the world on our special day? Not often, except when we get those cards that have lists or unless we personally remember the event. Do you know anyone who has a birthday or anniversary on the day of Kennedy’s or Martin Luther King’s assassination? The bombing of Hiroshima? How about good things, like the day the Berlin Wall came down? The END of WWII?
My ex-sister-in-law was born on Pearl Harbor Day. She considers it an interesting fact of her birth – to note on her birthday cards and in conversation. And I’m not brooding about my birthday being the anniversary of the start of WWII, but it is something that will probably come to mind from time to time. More fascinating to me is the strange connection we have – milestones in the same war.
September 11, 2001, was my granddaughter, Shea’s, 14th birthday. She got up that day, much as I did, checked in with her friends before school and picked out special clothes to wear, anticipating gathering after school with friends and in the evening with family. By the end of her first class, it had all changed. I recently discovered two other friends, of different ages, who share this birthday.
Tomorrow their birthday will come again, and the elephant will still be in the room. I wonder how this affects them?
The thought came to me that things like this can influence personalities. Think about the ripples on a pond. If the ripples start before some of us come along, there isn’t much left to pay attention to when we get there, so it probably wouldn’t have much effect on our psyche. Others get to experience the rock hitting the water and feel the results. Think about it. Taking age into consideration, the event wouldn’t have to be world-wide, but just something that a child found momentous.Your next hero or villain could have been part of, or witnessed, something on their birthday. Would it make them feel invincible or insignificant? Would it take them down, or instill determination?
Just a thought.
Are you one of those birthday people? Tell us what you think.
My due date was July 4th. Had I been born that day, the country would celebrate with me each year. As it turns out, I was late for the first and only time in my life. I was born on July 10. I don’t know of anything major that happened on the 10th, but I’m sure something did. I’ve always wondered about people who were born on September 11, 2001- something good to come of that day is the way I look at it. My best friend’s daughter was married a couple of years ago on September 11. Needless to say, it didn’t last long.
My Nana was born on Valentine’s Day. She was extra special that way.
I have a Valentine Birthday and have always been happy about it. I’ve found some people remember it because it’s VD and others forget because they’re concentrating on their sweethearts. But that’s okay. The people who really count always remember, I hope a negative event never changes the way I see the day. I’m sorry for those who dread their birthdays for that reason. I suppose the bottom line is that we are all only drops in that pool and our birthdays are quite small in the overall events of life.
While it didn’t happen on the exact same day, my mother was very sick and died shortly after my granddaughter Elizabeth was born. To me it seemed that Elizabeth’s birth at that time was proof that life and family and love go on.
This is interesting! My brother and niece’s birthdays are on 9/11.
I know this feeling. At least two horrific incidents occurred on my birthday–the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, the siege and burning of the compound in Waco, Texas. I began to dread my birthday because of the possibility of “copy-cat” incidences.