On Turning 47
And our dog having puppies, and our dinner club, and visiting the DMV
Today I am 47.
It’s the morning before winter solstice, the morning before the shortest day of the year, and the light from the sunrise slants shallow along the ground, throws long shadows that reach for our house. The evergreens are gray with frost, the sycamores an ashy white where their top layer of bark has peeled.
Today I am 47. Our two oldest are home from college, which makes it feel truly like Christmas is just around the corner. Maile got our younger four on the bus this morning and let me sleep in, since it’s my birthday, and she made me a bacon, egg, and cheese bagel for breakfast, even though she eats a whole-food, plant-based diet. True love crosses every boundary.
It’s nearly impossible to believe all the things that happened since my last birthday. Those of you who have been following along this year—and thank you for your loyal readership—know what a year it’s been, the heaviness of so many unexpected losses, so it could be easy to go into 2024 feeling hesitant, nervous, and ready to retreat at the slightest sign of something going wrong. It would be easy to live with my guard up, my numbing mechanisms engaged.
But we aren’t machines. Life isn’t always comfortable. And beauty arrives as unexpectedly as heartache.
A few days ago, we took our dog Winnie in for her one and only prenatal checkup before her puppies arrive, hopefully on her due date, December 23rd. The vet would check her overall health and then take an x-ray to let us know how many puppies we should expect—this is important so that you know they’ve all come out. Apparently, sometimes they don’t all come out on their own.
So, we went on an adventure to the vet, where Winnie wants to greet everyone and play with all the other dogs and sniff all the cats, something they don’t appreciate. Winnie was excited to be out and about. We were excited to finally confirm her pregnancy and get a puppy count.
We went back to the examination room and then the doctor took her into a separate room for her x-ray. Ten minutes later he came back in.
“Well,” he said, sighing, looking rather discouraged. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have great news.”
My license expires this year on the day after my birthday, so this morning, after my birthday breakfast, I took a shower and headed for the DMV. I figured I might as well get my Real ID while I’m at it, so I grabbed all the necessary documents before I left: birth certificate, social security card, a few bills that confirm our address.
Because I’ve also had terrible prior experiences at the DMV, I also loaded myself up with patience, a mug of coffee, and the mindset that this was going to take a while. And no matter what happened, I promised myself I wouldn’t get upset. I would remain calm. I would remain Zen. I was not in a hurry.
Just inside the DMV, I waited behind a couple who only spoke Spanish. The middle-aged white guy running the check-in fluidly switched to basic Spanish and talked them through what they needed, which I loved, and which I found inspiring. I would really love to learn Spanish. It seems such a gift when you can speak to someone in their own language. What better way can we welcome each other than by learning each other’s words?
He gave me my ticket and I sat in the vast, mostly empty expanse of the slow-moving DMV waiting area.
I got my documents in order, took a sip of coffee, pulled out my phone, and prepared to wait. I was completely calm. I was in no way upset or anxious.
The Friday before my birthday, our dinner club of ten friends got together for an early Christmas celebration, our 14th such gathering since we started in 2010. Three of us are over fifty, and in about five years all of us will be. It’s hard not to look around the table and think about how things were when we first started our monthly dinner tradition in the early days of 2010—our oldest children, the ones we used to put to sleep in pack-n-plays at each other’s houses, are now in college or living in New York City or in the armed forces or in chef’s training or running their own businesses or simply figuring out what life might look like.
And us? Who were we back then? Different people, really, people who hadn’t lost parents yet or hit rock bottom and then recovered, people who hadn’t had cancer or struggling children or lived through a pandemic. People who hadn’t completely changed careers, or quit things, or start from scratch. In those intervening years most of us had dreams that were shattered, and yet there we were, on a cold December night, sharing new dreams with one another.
These fourteen years of life we’ve had together, they have changed us.
There we sat for nearly five hours, catching up, sharing about this new phase of life with young adult children. The candles on the table flickered, and the food dishes emptied, and the wine glasses shimmered.
At the end of the night, warm hugs were given, and small gifts, and “Merry Christmas!” was shouted to each car as we watched each other drive off into the cold, dark night.
My DMV experience was ridiculously straightforward. After ten minutes, I walked out with my new ID. Maybe God does exist, even in the DMV.
My insides dropped when the vet said those words.
I’m sorry, but I don’t have great news.
We waited a moment, and then he continued.
“There’s only one puppy.”
I sighed. We didn’t want a huge litter. We aren’t doing it for the money—we simply wanted one of Winnie’s offspring to keep, a puppy she could play with and have as a companion as they grow older. Hopefully, another version of her.
One puppy. One little puppy.
Less than a week until the puppy is due, and Winnie spends a lot of time sleeping in her whelping box, where we hope she’ll give birth. She’s plump and showing other signs of her impending delivery.
If this puppy survives the birth, I’m not sure it will be able to survive the intense love and adoration it’s going to get from Winnie and all of us. This single, solitary puppy.
Today I turned 47.
I don’t think I’ve ever been more thankful to be alive. There’s something beautiful about life, even in the darkness and the weariness and the pain. There’s something beautiful about simply being.
Waking on a cold morning and letting Winnie out, standing on the ice cold porch in my bare feet, watching another sunrise through the evergreens across the street.
Standing in the chaos of the kitchen as the eight of us converge from our long days of work and sports and school, everyone having a million things to say, our voices chattering on and on, the soundtrack of my life.
Going up to bed with Leo and Poppy, sitting with my back against the wall and reading Susan Cooper’s The Darkness is Rising beside their nightlight while they fall asleep, the box fan droning on in the background.
Or sitting on my side of the bed reading, as Maile clicks off her light and nestles into bed beside me, draws in close, her eyes closed.
This is life, this here and now moment. There is nothing else.
The joy in your heart comes through in your words, Shawn.
A day, a family, a life, community and shared blessings.
Praise God for his many gifts:)
Happy, happy, happy birthday, Shawn! I'm very grateful for you and your way of sharing with the world.