Queens have two birthdays! And my Gran Mrs Lena Houghton was no exception
Jodi Houghton looks back in fond memory to Christmases that have passed and the loved ones who are no longer with us
My gran was raised mostly by her siblings due to losing her mother at a very young age, they all took on the role of her parent while still being children themselves, the Smith children all full of determination and grit equally deserve a small mention here for the path they had no choice but to take and one which gave me the best gran I could ever wish for….thank you Aunt Louie , Aunt Golia, Aunt Genta, Aunt Minnie, Uncle Nelson, Aunt Mary, Aunt Emily, Aunt Phoebe and Aunt Janie, you all are the epitome of what family are.
Grans older sisters, in charge now of all things to do with little Lena, insisted her birthday was Christmas Day, of course gran had no reason to doubt this and so for all her young life and most of her adult life she and we believed her birthday was on the 25th of December and we celebrated our beloved gran on this day.
Now it was especially wonderful for me, because my actual birthday is Christmas Day, and how lucky was I to celebrate the day with my old gran. We had joint cakes, a joint party (well a big family gathering in the front room having a sing song with a buffet on the kitchen table) the best sort of parties and a joint “we are both being waited on today” (although Gran still insisted on cooking the full Christmas dinner and looking after all of us from Christmas Eve to boxing night) and there were a lot of us!!
Fast forward quite a few years…. Gran had reason to apply for her birth certificate, which she had never seen before. It arrived through the post after a few weeks and that’s when Gran had her first glimpse that something wasn’t quite as she thought…. her birthday was in fact on the 19th of December- a week earlier that what her sisters had told her! She had a good laugh thinking back over the years when she was Lena the little Christmas baby.
Gran decided that moving forward she would celebrate her actual birthday on the 19th, and we all agreed…. apart from her son Tommy, and so it began, Gran had two birthdays, a week apart, double presents, double cards and double cake.
I think about it now and of course she had to have two birthdays; she was just too special to just have a standard celebration!
Gran was twice the woman of any I’ve known, she was my guiding light, the centre of my life, and I loved her with every fibre that makes me, she was simply Unforgettable- just like her double birthday.
In honour of my grans special day I have donated enough money to the British wireless for the blind fund who give radios for free and for life to people living with sight loss, Gran loved to listen to stories at night, and the wireless in the day, and we often had a sing song together when I visited which Mia became a part of to, she loved music and readily donated to RNIB (Royal National Institute of Blind People) selling raffle tickets to us on their behalf when we visited her. So this seemed a perfect fitting tribute which I know she would have loved!
My heart will always be broken, and I’ve lost so many of the people that held it together, but I cherish these memories and I’m so thankful for those that gave them to me.
God bless my gran……
By Jodi Houghton