As most kids, my sisters and I counted down the days to our birthdays like it was going to rain presents from the sky. It is very much beside the point that we rarely received more than one or two little things. For whatever reason, we never gave up feeling certain this year was going to be the most amazing birthday yet.
And so, it was incomprehensible to me when I learned that there are people who only get to celebrate a “real” birthday once every four years.
Our neighbor lady, Betty, was the one who taught this to me. She was gray-haired and older than my own mom, but one day I heard Betty say she was getting ready to celebrate her “real” birthday. “You know, I’ve really only had 12 birthdays,” she said with a laugh.
I was mortified for her. If she had only had 12 birthdays, she was the same age as my oldest sister. I felt like crying for the poor lady.
She looked way, way older than my sister. And she had a bunch of kids. I knew not to interrupt and understood it was rude to question a grown-up. But, if she really was only 12, maybe I was allowed to just come right out and ask.
I felt like my head might explode when I realized our neighbor lady had driven her car to our house. She wasn’t even old enough to have a driver’s license. Betty was surely in really big trouble, breaking the law for the whole world to see.
When I finally later had the opportunity to ask how this was possible, the answer only made me more surly.
So, the month of February only once in a blue moon had the 29th thrown in there. Why February? Why did anyone have to get born on that day and suffer endlessly throughout life, waiting forever to have a birthday party? And why call it leap year? Oh, I had so many questions.
My mom later assured me that Betty really wasn’t only 12 years old, and not to worry about her birthday celebration. “She told me they just always celebrated on the 28th, and she really did get a year older just like everybody else.”
All I knew for sure was that it was just about the dumbest idea I had ever heard, and I felt sorry for all the people in the whole wide world who had to suffer in this way.
If you are one of those leap-year babies, I hope you are celebrating big today. And I say put as many candles on your cake as you want. You deserve every single one!
