Jon called last night to wish me a happy birthday.  And then he asked, “How close did I get to getting it right?”

“Only two days off,” I told him.  “You did better than when you lived in Houston.”

Everyone remembers that when the redbuds bloom, it’s my birthday.  Sometimes they get it right.

When he was in Texas, he called me in February.  Two hundred miles south, they were blooming then.

When my mom was in the hospital to have me, it was snowing outside, and the doctor told my dad he couldn’t save both of us.  Dad chose to save mom of course.  The doctor said later that when he went to deliver me, I turned around, and was born before he had to make a choice.

My dad, and uncle Cleo were waiting--and when they heard that I had been born and was okay, they went outside and it wasn’t snowing, and the redbuds had burst into bloom.

Nobody forgets my birthday.  Sometimes, even the redbuds get it right.  This year they are close.  Tomorrow.  Eighty-four years of redbuds.