Eeyore famously said, “What’s a birthday? Here today, gone tomorrow.”
In some ways, this reflects my wife’s attitude toward birthdays, or about her birthday, anyway. So while Katie and I tried to celebrate our children’s birthdays with traditions like breakfast in bed, our own birthdays have gone largely unremarked. They usually involve Facebook greetings from friends, and since our birthdays are only 4 weeks apart, we often go out to eat in Ann Arbor. (This year at Miss Kims, a high-end Korean restaurant.)
But from a celebration standpoint, this year was different. January 29 was Katie’s Diamond Birthday, her 75th if you don’t want to look that up. And I managed a tea party with some family and friends. I didn’t do it by myself, of course. Our friend Lisa, who owns the Teahaus, and our friend Lily, of Day Lily Events, did all the work.
It was a complete surprise, which was the goal. The 33 guests included our daughter, my sister with her daughters and granddaughters, and Katie’s sisters. Ladies from our small group and some of the elders’ wives filled out the ladies-only event, as well as a very few old friends, as in friends for a long time.
It is good to celebrate a life well-lived, marked by hospitality and service. So, there were a few toasts and plenty of hugs. Katie felt honored, I think, and perhaps a little embarrassed. It’s not always easy to listen to people talk about you. At least, it is not easy for Katie. Humility is a cornerstone of her virtue, and of any virtue for that matter.
And while our birthdays are not usually marked by big gifts or parties, one thing I often do is write her a poem (see last year’s). And since the party itself was a public, ladies-only event, I wanted her to hear my voice as well. She loves maps and would be happy if we still had a collection of road maps in the back seat pocket rather than a GPS on our phone. In the past year, I have bought her a couple of Bible atlases so she can look up places as she reads through the Bible. And for Christmas, I gave her The Library of Lost Maps, a tour through a forgotten collection of maps that shaped Western history over 200 years.
This called for a poem about map-making, which I workshopped with some colleagues and students in Creativi-Tea, a creative writing group I host on campus. Here is the poem:
Boundary stones
For Katie, who loves maps
I have mapped the contours of your heart—
I know the borders that you will defend.
As your cartographer, I set in place
A marker stone of covenant love, and then
I trekked the peaks and valleys of desire.
Your mountain streams and river bends I know,
I am refreshed by fountains cool and deep
that irrigate the fields where daisies grow.
The briars and swamps? We know the tear of flesh,
but dwell in walnut groves beneath the stars;
I mapped your heart, and then I made my home
the lush, green landscape that you are.
Our map is memory disciplined by grace
That turns your love into a sacred space.
-Wally Metts, January 2026
Birthdays come and go. The candles are blown out. The plates are cleared. The guests drift off into the winter darkness. But what remains is not the silence after celebration — it is the quiet gratitude for shared years, for boundary stones set and kept, for a landscape tended together through frost and harvest alike.
Eeyore may have wondered what a birthday is. But I am beginning to understand. It is not merely a marker of time passing. It is a witness. A small marker on the trail. A reminder that the journey itself is the gift.
And if the map has worn at the folds, if the ink has softened with use, all the better. It means we have traveled it well.
Here’s to another year of walking it with her.
the daysman 