Sierra V. Fedorko

written late July 2023

In the days leading up to my son’s birthday, I was feeling jumbled up inside. Not because my son is turning 3 or that old saying, “don’t blink!” but because there was so much sorrow and so much loss surrounding those days. Not to me directly, but for those I love dearly.

Those weeks had been a mixture of tragedy, heaviness, and uncertainty for those close to me. Some things sudden and others ongoing. I prayed and ached for those I loved. Coupled with the exhaustion that follows a busy season and the everyday tensions to be worked through, well, I wasn’t sure how to feel the happiness and celebration of a birthday.

Of course, feeling happy or celebratory isn’t necessary to relish in the joy of something and I would have marked the magnitude of his 3rd(!!) birthday, but all the previous excitement for it was swept away. And I wanted the feeling back. Life was heavy. It felt a bit like the scary things and unknowns I wrote about in Swan Song of a Scarecrow. With God, joy is safe and there is comfort for our grief, but I didn’t want to feel the tension of either.

The Sunday night before my little boy’s birthday, we had a bunch of friends over for a last get-together before the end of our summer camp season. There was laughter and video games, old Barbie movies and popcorn, grown-up guys enjoying legos, and grown-up girls goofing off. (Yes, I even used a hairbrush as a mic!) We had bowls of dum-dums and hi-chews. Soda in the refrigerator and entire bars of fancy chocolate. I baked my son’s birthday cake during all the excitement. In true California fashion the power went out once, but miracuously returned in less than 10 minutes.

After everyone went home, I thought to myself…

this must be what heaven is like.

It must be like the smell of birthday cake, peels of laughter, grown-ups being kids again, the sound of the fridge door opening and shutting, all that abundance carried in hands and chocolate broken between fingers, eyes shining, happy exclamations, and fellowship in the kitchen, the popcorn bowl near empty, and fun dishes needing washed.

I realized for the whole evening, the heaviness in my spirit had been lifted. There was relief. And lightness. I had sung (sorta😅) and we had played.

Throughout the party I kept seeing my son’s candle-shaped number 3 lying on the counter. And each time I was filled with wonder. For all of it, I think. I was so delighted. My little boy. Another whole birthday. This happy evening punctuating the hugeness of that gift. Like certain shades bring out the color of one’s eyes, the joy of that evening brought out the happiness of birthdays, the summer solstice of life, the candle-shaped 3 on my kitchen counter. As I finished praying after such a joyous party, I think my heart must have looked like that candle-shaped number 3…beaming, bright, glittering.

What a powerful blessing to catch a glimpse, a mere glimpse, of what heaven must be like. And for things as “simple” as the smell of a baking birthday cake and the sound of a refrigerator door to turn our gaze upward for all the joy to come. Hope is commonplace and sacred ground all at once. And I can’t wait to put that candle-shaped number 3 on my boy’s birthday cake.

It will be my heart, after all.