Birthdays

So many times I talk with people and they just dread the up-coming birthday. Well, I must say I just don't understand why. This month, April, is always such a busy month in my family. First is my mother's birthday...a lady adding another year of wisdom to her life. She is now enjoying having fun. Going places, meeting people and using her few years as knowledge for the next adventure. Then we share the Grand-daughter..youth and innocense at it best. A big 7 years of widsom with wants, hopes desire to learn, and the unknown adventure of life ahead of her. OK, here is the big one....Gramps....can you believe we just celebrated his 97th year of life yesterday. Ninety-seven years....he has witnessed, automobiles, electricity installed, dirt roads turning black with pavement, telephones and now he sits in a world of advanced technology..computers, cell phones, satelites, GPS's, and just the fast pace of life that has been handed to us. He will talk in his calm voice of the simple hard working ways of his life-time. His life was not complicated by electronics controlling his every movement. He could go to a job-site and get the required days work done without the complaints of the truck broke down, ran out of gas, the power saw wouldn't work, the delivery didn't come. It was just simple! He went to work, brought his hand saw, hammer and nails or his mechanics tools and did the job. He didn't worry about rushing out to the bosses big dinner party after work. He didn't worry about the pressures of who had the biggest degree attempting to oust him from his job. If he did the work and did it well he kept his job..simple as that! He worked long hard hours every day, but he just knew that was what he was suppose to do. He never thought there was an easy way out or a quick way to make the buck....simple easy and no fast pace stress. He worked, he went home to his family. They didn't require a car for each member of the family, they didn't require huge cell/cable bills. He didn't rush to the grocery store and spend more money then he had. He went hunting and fishing...filled the freezer. He grew vegetables, that my Gram canned for the winter months to come. Maybe that is why is is now a functioning human being at 97 years of age.
So now with my own 58th birthday almost upon me I ponder the "what are importants of my life". Friends that had been lost on the journey of life are now coming back to me..stronger then ever. Family has become my main reason for breathe daily. I also have settled back to the simplier things in life that Gramps has always shown me..but why must we spend so much of our lives figuring out the already simple ways of life???