Happy Birthday, JayCee!

Another year, another birthday! It makes sense, doesn’t it.

Our son turned 32 yesterday. I loved it because I don’t mind aging so I tend to think other people don’t mind aging either.

I imagine that this year, JayCee (Swee’Pea) had a very happy birthday considering the way his Facebook page started to fill up quite early with lots of best wishes from all over the world...

Birthdays are fun... and sometimes not so fun when you are thousands of miles apart.

We should be used to be apart for birthdays... We barely manage to spend Christmas together... So just imagine what happens for our birthdays!

I don’t know why but this year, it was harder than the other years. Well, I know why. One of JayCee’s friend is expecting twins and she was supposed to give birth this week. So we’ve been talking about babies a lot.

Our “baby” was born 32 years ago! And we never saw the years go by from the moment he literally sprang up from my womb till the moment he left quite a long time ago... Luckily when you think about it!

Our son never was the kind of person who would have enjoyed to stay put in the the same place and close to his parents all his life. (Well, there was a time when we did think it would be fun because we were his parents and he was our only son.)

Lucky for him, I think we made it easy for him to go away... His dad reminds me from time to time the day when our Jaycee decided he wanted to go down south on his own... He was 2. Yes, 2.

The cutest little boy ever. He called his grandmother and told her it was too cold in the Paris area. She answered she’d come and pick him up. He’d spend a couple of weeks down South and we’d go there to drive him back home.

He got ready to go. We bought a very small yellow cardboard suitcase for him to take a few books and games on board... We packed another (real) suitcase with his help. He was getting so excited. And we were secretly thinking that at the last moment, he’d chicken out! After all, he was 2. He had never left us before. And he didn’t know his grandmother this well at the time.


I’ll never forget the way he kissed us goodbye at the airport. I’ll never forget the way he grabbed his grandmother’s hand and waved us goodbye before walking away to the plane... I was devastated of course! My baby! Going away, so soon and... so happy to leave us!

Well, this is the way it has been ever since! He went back down South many times. He started traveling on his own as soon as he was old enough to be a UM. So many times that he was often invited to fly in the cockpit with the pilots.

He was 12 when he left home to spend 3 months in Canada, going to school there. And then there was Ireland and Germany and Canada again and the States and Australia and so many remote places... for weeks, months and years!

People say to us: “What? You let him go when he was 2?”

Yes, we did and we are more than happy now that we did give him this feeling of freedom and of safety. He was free to travel whenever he felt like it but he knew he was welcome home as soon as he wanted to come home. He also knew we did not spend our time waiting for him while wringing our hands in despair!  He knew we loved him very dearly, I imagine.

And no, we did not buy a dog to fill the big gap at home whenever he was away!

This year was different though. We decided to call him and wish him a very happy birthday... and beat all his friends to it!

Skype is a wonderful invention... because when he turned his camera on, we were holding a candle which we blew out together (well, virtually on his side!). Corny, maybe a little. Funny, a lot!

 

Then we toasted him with our best champagne! 

Kind of mean I know! But after all, it was also our day, the day “our son” was born... 32 years ago!

Happy birthday, JayCee!




*Good Luck, and Good Night*