Every year, the birthday check from my mother arrived in time for my birthday: $15.00.
When I was young, instead of a check she gave me three five-dollar bills. This precious bounty went into my money jar, which smelled like pickles. I felt rich beyond words.
When I was fourteen, my mother helped me open a checking account at the local bank. On my birthday, she gave me a $15.00 check, which felt more grown-up than cash. I deposited the check along with my earnings from waitressing two evenings a week at Pryor’s Big Boy Burgers. My mother would drive me to work at 4 p.m. and pick me up at 8 p.m., since at that age I wasn’t allowed to work late.
When I went away to college, the birthday card and check showed up in my campus mailbox, right on time. Homesick freshman year, the familiar card and check warmed my heart. Plus, fifteen dollars was no small chunk of change. I added it to the weekly earnings from my work study job at the daycare center for faculty children.
My mother continued to send a $15.00 birthday check enclosed in a child’s birthday card even after I graduated college and got an entry level, salaried job. She undoubtedly purchased the card at Walgreens, her go-to for almost everything.
Why is she sending me this paltry check? I wondered. And this card with balloons and dancing elephants wearing tutus! I felt embarrassed. She knows I make enough money not only to pay rent, but also to get whatever I need. Does she think I’m still a child?
As I grew older and had children of my own, the times had changed. Fifteen dollars had become $120, which I give each child faithfully each year, even now that they are grown and gone. I was accounting for future inflation and my imperfect math probably led me to overestimate.
I imagine what my children are thinking. “Mom, we’re adults now. We have jobs and mortgages, Ally online bank accounts, Venmo and Apple Pay. We can afford whatever we need.”
I know, I know, I would tell them. Humor me. After all, I’m your mother.
At the same time, I continued to look forward each year to my mother’s predictable birthday card and $15.00 gift.
Still with balloons and elephants in tutus dancing.
Until they stopped.
All her life, my mother planned ahead to purchase a card, write a check and note, and address and mail the letter in perfect time for my birthday. Growing older, these many steps must have been more difficult than they used to be. Now she is gone.
Fifteen dollars won’t buy as much anymore.
I’m curious: Did my grandmother send my mother a check on her birthday?
If the tradition holds, what will $120 become for my grandchildren? One thing’s for sure: it likely won’t be sent as a check in the mail.
I hope my children know that the birthday check I send them each year represents all the love, hope and prayers that cannot be represented by any number of dollar bills.
Wisdom comes slowly. Sometimes there are not enough words.
What I would give to receive a birthday card and $15.00 check from my mother now.
Diane Roston, MD, is on the clinical faculty at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth and is a physician at West Central Behavioral Health in Lebanon.