Tomorrow is my 59th birthday. Growing up, McDowell birthdays were always celebrated with two additional verses to the Happy Birthday song:
We hope you live to be a hundred
We hope you live to be a hundred
We hope you live to be a hundred
and then 100 more.
Birthdays come but once a year,
When they come, they bring good cheer;
Happy birthday, Paulie dear
Happy birthday ‘til next year!
I was gifted my first calculator on my tenth birthday, January 11, 1976, and I immediately calculated the number of days I had been alive (3,652) I will have lived 21,550 days as of tomorrow (or 517,200 hours).
I am really quite happy to turn 59. as 2025 holds some big measurements starting with January, Notre Dame football could win the National Championship in 251 hours 15 minutes or 247 hours, depending on what time you are listening to this Chronicle).; March 2025 will mark 31-years of fatherhood, or 270,816 hours ; there are two notable celebrations in May, 2025 29-years of surviving a glioblastoma multiforme (I celebrate that one every day) (that’s 253,244 hours), and one-year of being a writer for Michiana Chronicles; October will mark 32 -years of marriage (I celebrate that one every day, too) (that’s 279, 552 hours for those keeping score at home); and dare I say it, a World Series championship for my beloved Chicago Cubs1 (well-deserved after playing 25,272 minutes of baseball, unless MLB decides to speed up the pitch clock, (even with a calculator, I can’t do the math for that scenario) .
There is a temptation to question what I would have done differently with one or more of those 517,200 hours. I’m certain that the answer is that if I could, I wouldn’t change much. Oh, maybe I wouldn’t have worn that leisure suit that makes my fifth-grade class picture so memorable. The truth is that I love my life. I love my wife, my kids, my siblings, my former teaching career. This is not to say that I have no regrets. I am human, of course I have regrets.
I am as imperfect as the next guy, but I do have an advantage. Not an obvious advantage, but an advantage nonetheless. My advantage is that I was diagnosed with an incurable brain cancer 29- years ago, and I have survived this long. The absurdity of that sentence is not lost on me. It is a miracle to be able to say that this diagnosis has guided my gratitude, my life-perspective, my life. Gentle listener, it will not surprise you one bit to learn that I have not lived every one of those 10,593 miraculous days with the integrity of someone living a miracle. I am as imperfect as the next guy. I hope you’ll join me tomorrow in welcoming and loving the 11thh day of January. If you see me, please do wish me happy birthday . . . just don’t sing the two additional McDowell verses. I only have 24 hours to enjoy my birthday (that’s only 1,440 minutes).
PS: If my numbers don’t all add up, please forgive me. I am as imperfect as the next guy. And I’m using a 40-year old calculator (that’s 14, 613 days-old) .
For Michiana Chronicles, I am the birthday boy, Paul McDowell.
Music: "Birthday" by The Beatles
