Wishes and Words





Last week a dear friend, Julia, asked what I wanted to do for my birthday. Realizing I wouldn’t be able to avoid the day altogether, I remarked that I would like to be allowed 24 wishes, one for each hour of the day. Well, she took my remarks and created a most spectacular day. I arrived at the hospital this morning with a sheet of paper listing out my wishes (I included 27…is it unreasonable that I added a few “to grow on?”). Julia had spent the overnight hours at the hospital with Ethan and greeted me with 24 of the most decadent



mini-cupcakes I had ever seen.We took my list of wishes and after I read aloud #1-10 (since I had not begun at midnight), I paused before blowing out the first candle. Each hour we were at the hospital, we continued this pattern, with me making a wish and then blowing out a candle.Several friends stopped by throughout the morning and shared in the delicious cupcakes. While this would have been more than enough, there was a second component to the day that became clear after a couple of hours. As I was checking emails, I began to notice that I was receiving one every hour from a different person. The subject line contained one word and the body of the email expressed how this word related to me. Words like incomparable, radiant, teacher, and stellar were a few of the words that swept me off my feet. Add that to a bounty of texts, Facebook messages and phone calls I’ve received throughout the day and I’d say this birthday will go down in my memory as one of the most special, loving birthdays ever.

Shabbat Shalom,
Alexia



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