Happy Birthday NaNa!

It’s a big birthday week! I turned 36 on Sunday, and my NaNa would have been 83 today. I did what every responsible grown woman would do on the first birthday without her NaNa: yelled at two strangers, ate birthday chocolate, made enough chili to feed Africa - all of Africa, looked at every NaNa picture I could find, and cried until my eyes were swollen shut. 

Firsts are always hard. NaNa and I celebrated our birthdays together when I Iived in America. Although we haven’t been able to celebrate our birthdays in person for a long time, this is the first year she’s not there. I can’t call her when I know she’s not home to leave long ridiculous voice mails (because she couldn’t hear me over the phone but would listen to voicemails I left her over and over again). 

8 yeas ago for NaNa’s 75th!

NaNa’s children, grandchildren and great grandchildren are celebrating her today in their own special ways.

I cried hard today. I grieved deeply.  I talked about it during our dinnertime high/low game. My low was that I couldn’t call NaNa, and my high was that I decided it was ok to eat a bonbon, not get work done, and cry until I couldn’t see or breathe anymore.

Good, deep, authentic love marks us deeply. I’m so thankful for that, even when there’s loss and the marks hurt. If we weren’t impacted by love... if we weren’t created for family... then how could we know Jesus? How could we receive the one who bore every mark for us so that, when our birthdays were finished, we would enter into the glory of eternal life.  

I don’t know if there’s birthday parties in heaven. Every day is a glory day! But I am sure NaNa is rocking a sparkling visor,  throwing her head back in laughter, and is kicking her feet as she floats down that river of living water. She lived and loved a life worth crying for, and I’m so thankful for every tear that falls as a tribute to being a woman who is marked by love.