Birthdays.

Our mom was a total boss at so many things, but birthdays were a particular specialty. Today is hers.

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Julia: Birthdays were important at our house, because Mama made them special.

Sara: Mama took me and two of my best friends to Chez Panisse Café for my sixteenth birthday. The rest of the family was in Utah and I was home for a few days between a couple of weeks of nannying in Belgium and nine days of Chorus Camp. It was entirely her idea and I was floored by the extravagance and grown-up-ness of it. She even encouraged all of us to order three-course meals, which seemed the height of sophistication.

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Laura: When I turned 20, in addition to a birthday package, my mom sent me eighteen blank emails, each with a single letter in the subject line, so my inbox spelled a vertical message: H-A-P-P-Y-B-I-R-T-H-D-A-Y-L-A-R-U-A. So close, Mama. I loved that a lot.

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Sara: The summer Tyler and I were dating, he joined our family for all the birthday celebrations. In this way he became acquainted with my mom’s peach pie, which my dad always has on his birthday, in early August. Tyler’s immediate reaction was, “I have a birthday during peach season, too!” So later that month, my mom made the peach pie for him, too. (Making Tyler’s peach pie has fallen to me ever since, but that first year, I think because of his great appreciation for it, Mama made it.)

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Laura: Our theme parties were the actual best, even when our theme requests (we always got to choose them) were obscure, or random, or elaborate (like my ninth: Roald Dahl-themed, complete with golden ticket invitations, a mandate to come dressed as your favorite character, and an Enormous Crocodile cake). But Mama also had some strict rules — birthday etiquette mattered, she made that much clear. Even though it was a special day for us, we were hostesses, too, and thus responsible for making sure our guests had a good time. In every activity, at every party, birthday girl goes last. This is the rule.

Sara: Princess party, age 4. Castle cake (one of her finest efforts), princess hats (cone-style) to wear and crowns for the boys. Story: I am made to go last in the pin-the-princess-jewels game and cry, receive my cake last and cry again.

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Julia: I don’t remember why I wanted to have a Hawaiian-themed birthday party. But for some reason, the year I turned 8, I thought it would be the coolest thing in the world. It wasn’t necessarily the easiest year to have a big party–the logistics of planning my baptism were already a pretty big pain–but that is what Mama did. We ordered a blow-up palm tree, grass skirts, and paper garlands. We went to a flower supplier to get lei-making materials. We had long discussions on the most appropriate dessert. On the day of, my friends and I played pin-the-coconut-on-the-palm-tree, made volcanoes and leis, and learned to hula from a Hawaiian woman in our congregation.

Tiny Julia, friends, Laura and Mama learning to hula.

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Laura: At 6 I wanted a Laura Ingalls Wilder party (???), and I invited I think 6 girls. Mama took me to the fabric store where I picked out six different fabrics, each of which I deemed suited to each friend, and then she made them each a bonnet to wear and take home after their time on the prairie. A bonnet!

Laura turns 6, girls wear bonnets.

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Sara: Two days after my sixteenth, on her birthday, I stopped at a bakery on Solano and bought her little chocolate mousse cakes with raspberries. After my day of rehearsal in San Francisco I brought them to her office. She was very appreciative, even though they were rather smashed after a full day of travel in my backpack. I remember this particularly because I had rather belatedly realized that since everyone else was away it was up to me to do something nice for her birthday. And though this probably wasn’t really the case, it felt like the first time I’d really thought about her as a person and not just as my mother.

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Laura: Once when we were sitting eating pizza at Lake Tahoe, it was near my dad’s birthday, but not the day of. We were discussing Canton, my dad’s Connecticut hometown and undisputed favorite place. We were talking about someone visiting there, I can’t remember who, but then Mama turned to him with suppressed excitement and said, “You know who else is going to Connecticut? You and me.” And I remember how he looked at her, as he took in this extra special birthday present, with an expression that can only be described as wonderment.

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Sara: Pig party, age 3. Pig-face cake, snouts to wear, pin-the-tail-on-the-pig. Held at Codornices Park. Famous story: little friend tries Coke, clutches her throat, “It burned me!” (I had been drinking Coke practically since my infancy and was totally unfazed by it, so this made my parents feel some pangs of guilt.)

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Sara: Swimming party, age 5. Swimming pool cake with diving board, fishing game, great game where we threw plastic Ariel off the balcony into a bowl of water. (That one was my dad’s invention, I’m pretty sure.)

Sara’s swimming party, plus an unfortunate sister cameo.

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Sara: age 7. Party: NONE (returning from Argentina around that time). Bitter about this for years.

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Julia: When I was in eighth grade, I felt like I had no friends. This caused a certain amount of crying, and as my 14th birthday approached the floodgates opened pretty much every day. How could I have a birthday party when I didn’t have any friends? It was a question I asked myself, and Mama, many times, with varying degrees of panic. That spring I had been to a local bouldering gym with Sara a few times. Mama came up with a plan: we would rent out the facility, so that I could have an interesting, different party, and I would invite everyone I was sort-of friends with. This way I would avoid the awkward intimacy of my normal 6-person birthday parties, whose standard members I had grown less close to. I would also be reaching out to girls I could be friends with in the future, without being too forward. It was awkward, and crazy, and perfect. Everyone had a blast, and I felt like a semi-normal person for the first time in a while.

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Laura: Let it be known that most of the clothes in all 3 of our closets are gifts from our mother — and that she almost always got us the right size on the first try, and that I can remember only 3 or 4 instances when I didn’t really like what she had picked out for me. Let it be known that our friends are often impressed at what our mom has bought for us (the pieces she chose are quite frequently the most interesting elements to my wardrobe, which otherwise has about as much personality as a bowl of Cheerios).

Let it be known that it is one of life’s greatest simple pleasures to twirl for your mother in a new dress that you both like.

Sara: Last year, under the influence of mania-inducing steroids, she bought me five (!) Talbot’s dresses. I had just gotten a job, and after a baby and an international move had nothing to wear to work. She really cared about having appropriate clothing—it made her very uncomfortable to be underdressed—so she wanted me to be well provided for in that area. I still wear at least one of those dresses to work every week. They’ve been a huge boon to my wardrobe.

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Laura: Mama was thinking about my husband Jamie’s birthday in the last month of her life. She somehow remembered that he wanted to learn to bake bread. We should encourage that, she said. She wanted to get him a kit, or a good book on it.

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Thank you, Mama. You taught us how to celebrate people, thoughtfully and buoyantly and well.

We miss you every single day.

Happy birthday.