Day: February 27, 2008

We knew that we wanted to do something different to celebrate Howard’s 40th birthday. We wanted something that would invite all the friends we’ve made through Schlock Mercenary to participate as well. So at the beginning of this month, Howard posted a blog entry requesting that Schlockers send him postcards for his birthday. They responded wonderfully. As of this writing Howard has received 174 postcards. As they’ve arrived, we put them up on one wall. They didn’t all fit, so we’ve wrapped around corners to either side and started filling additional wall space.

Each of these cards is a gift. They represent a small gift of time and effort of the person who sent them. Some of them represent larger gifts of effort, such as the hand drawn card of Legs jumping out of birthday cake, a hand drawn bear, the photoshopped card of a ROD that purports to be from Ganj-Rho, or the two cards that depict Schlock visiting sites in New Zealand. One person even carefully constructed a fiddly bit to go on his card. Other gifts of time are made in the careful selection of cards. We have a couple of postcards that are ancient, one at least 50 years old. Some people went out of their way to find really cool stamps for the card they sent, such as the 1976 Olympic stamps. Several people send multiple postcards, either packaged together in envelopes or mailed separately. People chose postcards carefully and deliberately, trying to find the coolest or funniest picture possible. A few people weren’t able to find postcards and so sent regular cards instead. One person simply wrote a note on a 3×5 card and sent that.

All of these things went up onto the wall. Our whole family has enjoyed watching the collection grow. The kids have all spent time staring at cards and giggling at cards. They’ve spent time trying to figure out if we got cards from all the states and which countries are best represented on the wall. When I take the cards down, I may do one of those Google maps to show where they all came from. And I’ll put it all together into a scrapbook. Because there is no way we’re getting rid of any of it. They’ve delighted us all far too much for that.

As much as I’ve enjoyed looking at the fronts of the cards, the part that makes me teary-eyed are the words written on the backs. Sometimes the message is simply “happy birthday.” Other times the whole card is filled with writing telling the details of how this particular person found Schlock Mercenary, how long they’ve been reading, and how much they love the comic. A good half dozen or more have drawings of Schlock characters. But no matter what words are used, the underlying message is the same. “Thank you Howard. What you do made a difference for me.” That message is far more valuable that the pieces of paper.

So to anyone out there who sent a card. Thank You. And thank you to all the rest of you who did not send a card, but still care enough to click and read each day. Thank you for the gift of time and attention. We are grateful to you all.

This morning I was oppressed to the point of tears. My list of things to do for today seemed impossible. Howard and I sat down with the list to do triage. I quickly discovered that the list itself was completely managable. The source of the stress was not the list. The source was the fact that both Howard and Patches have birthdays this weekend and I’d not done a thing to prepare.

A month ago Howard and I discussed his upcoming 40th birthday. Howard expressed an interest in doing something special to commemorate the event. I agreed and we discussed the possibility of having a big party along with other options. Then time passed and I had busy day after busy day. Suddenly that far off birthday was this week, and I hadn’t done a thing to prepare. This is unusual for me. I’m usually plotting and planning weeks ahead of time. Ditto on Patches birthday the day after Howard’s. Birthdays are important. It is important that the birthday person feels loved and appreciated on that day.

Once I realized that the birthdays were the source of most of my stress, I rearranged my task list. I could not relax until the birthday pre-planning was done. So I went shopping. I bought some birthday gifts. I ordered Patches a birthday cake. I made invitations for Patches’ party on Saturday. Patches and I then delivered those invitations. I spoke with Howard’s siblings and finalized the arrangements for all of us to go out to Sushi for Howard’s birthday dinner. I still need to buy party prizes for Patches’ party. I also need to pull together a coherent plan for the events of that party. But now I feel like I’ve actually paid some attention to the coming celebrations. Now I have the shape of them in my head and I’m looking forward to them rather than them just being items on my task list. This is good.