Birthday Portrait and Story

 Another birthday portrait and time to reflect.  I no longer count my gray hairs or my wrinkles. It doesn't matter anymore how gray my hair is and how deep my crowfeet are. I am now comfortable with them and trying to gracefully age. Preparing my mindset for the few more decades I may have. To live purposefully and with some kind of meaning. As we get older the past is seen much clearer than the future (that is what makes us wiser as we age) so I go back and tell a story. A personal story. 

I am just one birthday shy from living a half-century, Which takes me back 24 years ago when I turned 25. I remember marking my birthday in the middle of the night with a crescent moon over the horizon in the middle of a 53 km hike to St Gabriel Church at Kulubie. Here is the story of why I was there and why I did that hike. 

My mother had a difficult pregnancy when I was conceived, she at least had one miscarriage before I was born and she was not feeling great about the pregnancy. She was worried that I will not be able to make it into this world because her health was not that great. She was consistently worried about what is going to happen as the pregnancy progressed. She was so anxious about it that she prayed day and night so that she can have a healthy birth and healthy child. My mother is a trained nurse with a childbirth specialty and she knows the risk and the odds of having a healthy childbirth with the condition that she was in.  Even though she had access to the best doctors and the top medical facility in the country she didn't choose to depend entirely on that. She needed a small divine intervention.  

There is a religious custom in Ethiopia that desperate or anxious people pray to one of the many saints asking for help to make them go through the problem that they are facing. It can be anything from health issues to financial problems. As part of the prayer, they promise to do or give something to the church named after the saint. They are many saints and churches known for listening to the prayers of the faithful and fulfilling them. One of these churches is St Gabriel Church of Kulbie of Harar. 

Kulbubi is a small village located in eastern Ethiopia 73 km from Harar an old walled city that was the capital of the region for many years. Although my mother was born in the small town of Babile 32 km away, she grew up in the ancient city until she left for Addis. She grew up hearing the miracles of Kulubi's St Gabriel.  Kulubie's church of St Gabriel is flooded twice a year with pilgrims flocking from all over the country to mark the day of St Gabriel. One of those days is December 28 the day I was born. They come to pray so that their problems are solved and wishes fulfilled, or for those whose prayers had been heard to give thanks and hand their promised offering. The offering ranged from cattle to gold which made the church one of the richest in the country. 

Naturally, the first saint that crossed my mother's mind must have been St Gabriel and my mother prayed for healthy childbirth and a healthy child promising to walk to Kulbie on foot from Dire Dawa or Harar with the healthy child. The divine intervention that my mother needed, happened and I was born healthy and my mother s survived the childbirth.  

My mother tried twice to take me with her to Kulubi but I was too young and her health was not very good most of the time so she did her part by walking the grueling uphill walk a few years before her death fulfilling part of her promise. Years letter I did the same walk to complete my mother's promise to Saint Gabriel. I was not and I am not a religious person but the journey was necessary to close the chapter of my mother's life. I always look back and am glad that I did it for my mother. That was one of the most memorable birthdays of the many I am fortunate to have.