I was savoring one of my favorite dark chocolate candies, with almond, when I reached down to wad up the foil wrapper. And just before I scrunched it up, I noticed the message on the inside of the wrapper. It said, “Happy Un-Birthday!
Maybe most everyone besides me knows what that means, or the significance of that phrase, but I didn’t know, or couldn’t remember, so I had to ask. I went-a-searching at Dictionary.com, and here’s what they came up with:
–any day other than one’s birthday
–an unbirthday present, coined by Lewis Carroll in Through the Looking-Glass
Another clue to the meaning of unbirthday comes in the movie, Alice in Wonderland. Some cute and lively characters are celebrating with tea and singing as Alice comes upon the scene and joins them at the table. The lyrics between the Mad Hatter and the March Hare explain it all:
March Hare: Imagine, just one birthday every year
Mad Hatter: Ah, but there are three hundred and sixty-four unbirthdays
So, there you are, you have permission to celebrate the three hundred and sixty-four other days in the year that aren’t your birthday. You can celebrate that you have been given that many days in the year to do something special. Like…enjoy three hundred and sixty-four opportunities to do better than you did the day before, do something new and exciting, tell someone different each day that you love them, show a kindness every day, savor the sun coming up every morning, and in Arizona—the sun going down every evening!
There’s one more thing you can do. Look at the meaning of un-birthday from the point of view of the one million babies in a year that did not have a birthday because their parents, who conceived life, but were not prepared for that life, decided that this baby would not make it to their “birth” day.
The baby who was aborted today just had an un-birthday. And it’s nothing to celebrate.
Shining The Light 