Important Birthday

My oldest daughter was born on November 10, 1979. As she turns 40 today, none of us in the family will forget her 39th year when we learned that her son Hayes, our adorable grandson, has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.

My daughter was born at the Naval Regional Medical Center in San Diego while I was serving in the First Marine Division. It so happens that the Marine Corps birthday also falls on November 10th. 

Cultural notables Miranda Lambert (singer) and Lilly Pulitzer (fashion designer) joined us on a tenth day of November as well.

What do we typically do on birthdays? Well, we normally celebrate. Perhaps, a bit more sentimental and subdued this year. Nonetheless, there is so much more to birthdays than being merely a day of celebration.  

Abraham Lincoln was quoted as once saying,  “In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”

There is a famous poem entitled “The Dash”. The poem is written by one who reflects on a person’s life at their funeral. The author observed that it was not the years of living and the age of the deceased that mattered so much but, rather, the nature and quality of the life she lived in between her birthday and death, namely the dash between those two dates.

The years between the birth and death of a Duchenne child will be shortened by Duchenne. Certainly, the quality of health status will decline.

However, I know my first born, our grandson’s mother, will do all she can to optimize the quality and nature of our grandson’s life and life experiences for as long as humanly possible. And, meanwhile, we will continue praying for an end to Duchenne so that our grandson’s dash is a gift to all who know and love him hopefully for a very long time. And, each birthday will matter in the process.

Kindly, 

Papa in Tennessee