Happy Birthday Dear You, Happy Birthday To You

“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you… ” Ali just appeared behind me singing the famous traditional song while I was making a fire for a barbeque.

“Happy birthday Dear Ali, happy birthday to you” spontaneously I opened my mouth and began to sing together with her.

Don’t get this wrong, this is not her birthday and not my birthday either. She just likes to sing this happy birthday song. This is not the first time, whenever there is a fire, she would automatically sing this song. She does like singing a lot of songs, but this song is the most favorite of hers. And the cute thing is the second part when it supposes to be like “Happy birthday Dear… (the name of the birthday person)” but for Ali, it always becomes “Happy birthday dear Ali” even that the times weren’t her birthday.

In the beginning, I always stopped her and try to tell and fix her about that, but after it repeated over and over and it always like that so I just thought it useless for me to attempt to change it, and then eventually I just let her babbling in her ways. It just looked nice when I saw her sing that song and a big smile draw on her face left you the warm feeling inside.

Birthday isn’t something special for me. It was, at least until my 12th, but since then I lost the special “thing” inside birthday. It’s just complicated to tell, but in my 3 years junior high school, I was living with my grandmother in different island from my parents live. And in those years, this special day became just like the other common day for me. My parents never call me on my special day just to wish a birthday wish. Not only in my birthday, but in another day, I could count how many time she called me, less than 5 times in 3 years. A few years later, sometimes I would forget my birthday, some people said that’s why I look young because I never think about my birthday which means I never think about my age. (I have no idea where those speculations came from).

But this year, Ali sang this song every day to me until August passed, every morning when we had breakfast, every noon when we had lunch and in the evening when we had dinner. In the beginning, It felt like “C’mon, not that song again” but because it seems she definitely enjoys that song and like it so much so I decided “ok, let’s sing it along” and that’s become our favorite song ever.

I don’t really understand why she sang that song, but Ali definitely brought back this feeling inside me. She made me feel again the sparkle of birthday. The joy of the coming year, the excitement of the special day, the passion of getting to the next year again. But most of all, she turned the birthday that only happens once a year becomes possible to make it every day.

The Musings

Birthday happens every day means we can feel the joy, the excited feeling, the glitter and the passion every day. We will not have to wait until the next year to feel more spiritually and passion. When a birthday comes every day means every day we will full of joy, excitement and passion that sparkle around us.

When I realized about it, then I knew why Ali never gets tired even she plays all day long, running, springing, climbing and many other things, why she looks full of spirit, the energy never run out (even normal kids, they would feel tired for awhile but not for Ali). It’s simply because of her, birthday is every day just like passion is renewed every day.