In Mitch Albom’s tale, 83-year-old Eddie Maintenance, as children call him because of the stitching on his work shirt, dies in an amusement park accident at Ruby Pier, where he has spent decades making sure that all the rides are operating safely.  In the course of the book and our introduction to Albom’s version of the hereafter, Eddie meets five people who inform him about the meaning of his life, the why and the wherefores.  Interspersed in and separating his visits with these people (some only briefly glimpsed during his lifetime or even not at all in person) come accounts of Eddie’s birthdays over the years.  A lifetime of rising tension with his father, dissatisfaction with his life, and deep sorrow about wartime killings pervade the birthday scenes, which offer a way to track the trajectory of Eddie’s life.  From the day of his birth to his 82nd birthday, they introduce characters in his life and themes of feeling like a failure and of giving up.

Of course, at the tale’s end, the meaning of Eddie’s life is satisfactorily clarified for him leading to relief, contentment and expectation.

I don’t know if many of us could imagine the five people we might meet in heaven and the answers they would have to our questions about our lives, but I do know that we can write about our lives using the idea of successive birthdays to find insights.  Albom writes the scenarios for the day Eddie was born, for his fifth, seventh, eighth, 17th, age of soldiering, 33rd, 37th, 38th, 39th, 51st, 60th, 68th, 75th and 82nd birthdays.

Here is a sampling from the scenes over the years:

On the day of Eddie’s birth: “The father breathes heavily, nods his head. For a moment, his face seems to crumble, like a bridge collapsing into a river.  Then he smiles.”

On Eddie’s seventh birthday when he gets the gift of a new baseball, he and his brother Joe are tossing it when the ball thumps down into a clearing by sideshow tents (Eddie’s father worked for the amusement park, too):

A whumping noise interrupts them.  A tent flap opens. Eddie and Joe look up. There is a grossly fat woman and a shirtless man with reddish hair covering his entire body.  Freaks from the freak show.

The children freeze.

 When Eddie is 37, he sits with his friend Noel at breakfast in a booth, as usual:

Eddie shrugs.  The morning is already hot and thick with humidity. This is their routine:  breakfast, once a week, Saturday mornings, before the park gets crazy.  Noel works in the dry cleaning business. Eddie helped him get the contract for Ruby Pier’s maintenance uniforms.

On his 82nd birthday, he takes a taxi to the cemetery:

He visits his mother’s grave and his brother’s grave and he stands by his father’s grave for only a few moments. As usual, he saves his wife’s for last.  He leans on the cane and he looks at the headstone and he thinks about many things.  Taffy. He thinks about taffy.  He thinks it would take his teeth out now, but he would eat it anyhow, if it meant eating it with her.

*****

Think about your birthdays.  Write a paragraph or more describing each of many in chronological order.  You can record where you are and who is there and what you are doing or playing.  If you remember snatches of song or dialog, put them in.  Be sure to include details that appeal to the five senses, describing how things look, taste, smell, sound and feel. What do the birthday candles remind you of?  What metaphor can you make to describe what you are like at your party or on your special day?

For a variation, include other people’s birthdays that you were involved in.  Some interesting material might result in the contrast or connections you make after writing about a variety of birthday events. If you want to, project yourself into future birthdays and see what comes up—and what title that might lead to.

Here are some samples from birthdays I remember. I don’t feel finished yet with these paragraphs, but I have a start for a future rough draft that I can continue and then develop:

I.

I am coming into the world today!  I did not choose this day; the doctors are taking me by Caesarian.  My mother is toxemic and has been eating only rice for weeks now, my father calling it by different names whenever he serves it to her.  My grandmother is worried about her daughter and has hired a nurse to take care of me.  Soon they will all discover that I am allergic to the cow’s milk-based formula they planned to feed me, and they will switch to a smelly soy-based concoction nobody likes to deal with. I will live in Baltimore, MD. My caretakers will carry me up and down the marble staircase of the house they live in, divided into apartments.  I will suck from the soy formula filled bottle, cradled in their arms.

II.
I am 11.  My fifth-grade friends are arriving at my NJ split-level house with presents.  March is coming in like a lion, but my birthday, as always, brings daffodils and spring clothing it is still too cold to wear.  I am happy that I will have to put away the pretty pastel-colored shirts and shorts wrapped in tissue for a couple of months. I prefer the green wool straight skirt I wear to school as often as I can, the white man-tailored long-sleeve blouses I wear with it, the lamb-shaped cufflinks I use to close the cuffs.

My friends and I come to the table for cake and soda.  My mother has ordered me a cake that looks like a giant raspberry cookie.  She thought it would be fun because I like Linzertortes.  I blow out the candles and make a wish for a dog, something fluffy and large, to walk and to have sleep in my room. I imagine myself wearing the frilly dress I wore when I was four, the frilly dress I see in old black and white photos with scalloped edges.

Though she has ordered a cake made of stiff cookie dough, my mother worries I dress too severely.  I do not worry. I think the straight green skirt shows off my figure.  I do not know why white blouses appeal to me. I enjoy each crunch of the cookie-cake, think I’ll wear the pastels in summer when school is out.

III.
My son is eight.  We are roller-skating at an indoor rink to celebrate his birthday.  My ex-husband is throwing the party and I have brought the cake—all chocolate.  My boyfriend is behind me, holding my hips, pushing me around the circumference of the rink.

My little niece, four, and my daughter, ten, are with us too, and lots of little boys I know from my son’s classroom.   We all sit at a long table by the side of the rink to watch my son blow out birthday candles. I wonder what he wishes for. A dog, I think, either at his dad’s or at his mom’s.

IV.
I am 35.  I have just come home from a walk with a friend whose partner has published a chapbook of my poems.  Many of my friends are in my house, leaning against the old oak upright piano my daughter is learning to play, opening 7-Up in the kitchen and pouring it into paper cups.  My children are beaming.  They have made me a surprise birthday party in our house by calling a friend whose number they knew.  They have ordered a cake from the baker I coach in writing poetry.  It is chocolate.  When I blow out the candles, I wish for more birthdays like this one.

V.
I am 41. It is grey and raining where I live.  My children and husband of five years watch as I unwrap the pastel pink and beige shorts outfit they have given me from the Gap with matching socks and sneakers. The shirts and top are one size too small for me.  I smile at the compliment.

I wonder whether if I wrap the clothing items up and wait for warmer weather, I can possibly fit into them. I put the daffodils they’ve brought in water.

*****

Today. I am willing to call my draft so far, “The Birthday Rink.”  I am sure I will find more to say about birthdays and more birthdays to add in, of my own and others like my daughter and husband and grandson.  I am interested to see where this will go and will keep writing.

I look forward to reading what you do with the exercise.