birthdays.

I never understood those people who complain about their birthdays being close to or on Christmas. Their reasoning is that they don't get as many presents because most people just give them a combination Christmas/birthday gift. That always seemed pretty obnoxious to me, and confusing. If your birthday falls on a special holiday, it means your family is together. Everyone is festive. People are smiling, celebrating, joyful. And you get to share that.

My best friend's birthday is September 11th. She gets to share the day with the nation's mourning. The recounting of the "Where were you on 9/11?" stories. The photos and videos of that day replayed on every news station, every flag at half-staff, the moments of silence before memorial speeches. There's no selfish complaining about not getting enough presents - there's the awkward and inescapable realization that while she's opening presents and blowing out the candles, thousands of people are crying over pictures of loved ones, loved ones who will never see another birthday.

My grandmother (on my father's side) was born on January 1. The ultimate day to celebrate life, the hope and promise of a new year. She has always shared the day with New Year's Day, the day to rest after the night's celebration, the day people love to welcome the moment it happens at 12:00am, the day people decide that the coming year will be even better than the last.

This year, early in the morning on January 1, my grandfather (on my mother's side) died. I woke up to my mother's call, knowing what she would say before she even spoke, and spent the morning crying into Kevin's chest. And then I called my grandmother to wish her a happy birthday. She said, "I just kept praying, 'Please God, don't take him on the 1st. Please not on my birthday.'" She wasn't being selfish, wishing she could have had the day to herself. She was feeling guilty for having another birthday, embarrassed that people would feel they had to set aside their grief to sing a silly birthday song.

September 11 and January 1 are extreme examples, of course, because they represent both ends of the spectrum: destruction and rebuilding, both the loss and the promise of hope.

But on the other days of the calendar, days not memorialized by the government or celebrated with a parade in Times Square, the same dichotomy happens. Someone is born the moment someone dies. A family marks a new day to celebrate every year while another will forever mourn the day, the very hour.

We can't choose the day we were born or the day we die (with the obvious exception of suicide). It's not our fault if we entered the world on a day someone left. If our friends want to give us presents and bake us cupcakes while someone down the street is delivering a casserole and a sympathy card.

And since we can't choose the days, we can't change them. They just are. The best we can do, then, is celebrate the lives of others, honoring those we've lost by living each day as if it truly means something to be alive. Not as if every day is a birthday, but a celebration of birth itself. A celebration that somehow, some way, life goes on.