There's a hole in my birthday

As children we thought of birthdays as magic.   Anything was possible - nothing bad could happen.   As we grow older, we notice the holes.   The people who are no longer with us - the sadness that life has brought, dreams that have vanished like a popped bubble or just faded away like a handfull of smoke.   These make the holes.

When I was a little girl, we used to make paper doilies by cutting folded paper.   We folded a square of paper in quarters then diagonally and drew our master template on it.   This always had to start with a cross in the middle.   One arm had to go to the folded centre and the others ambled where we wished.   Then we cut out the holes.

 

What makes the pattern is the holes.   Without them we would have nothing but a plain, boring, piece of paper.   The same with my holey birthday.   Each hole is specifically shaped, not a nebulous nothing and somewhere exists or existed the substance of that hole, uniquely designed for the life that is mine.