
Perhaps there’s a brief yearning for years which are gone, but there’s no call for celebration — you’ve had too many birthdays to make a big thing of yet another one. Perhaps the family will press a bottle of red into your gnarled fingers and you’ll hear whispered asides, "Oh, he’s wonderful for his age, isn’t he?" "Still walks to the mailbox every morning without fail and without falling over."

The lesser birthdays may bring an email from some crowd who have entered your birth date on their data base and, along with a "Happy Birthday" message, they manage to slip in a polite and caring reminder about several accounts which remain unpaid.
Simply forgotten perhaps as you slide into senility. Naturally, along with their joy at seeing you reach another birthday they are keen to see things settled before they are faced with the messy business of dealing with those holding power of attorney after you have shuffled off.
How inspiring, then, to be invited to a birthday party for a 4-year-old.
It was just last week and I joined a cluster of great-grandparents, grandparents, parents, aunties and other well-wishers to celebrate the birthday of a boy who has broken with family tradition and is not yet a person of interest to the law enforcement agencies.
A birthday cake in the shape of a laptop had been ordered and the boy’s mother worked deep into the night to produce the world’s first edible computer. It was a work of art and I felt it was wrong to slice it up.
I got the bit that said "Delete" — maybe there’s a message there.
The party was a bit like being in a toyshop. There were balloons and a mountain of Lego pieces, which was the raw material for a near life-size model of the Titanic. To prove that we actually do learn from history, this model had enough lifeboats to ensure that everyone, including the band, got away safely. Enough lifeboats to sink a ship, in fact.
But pride of place went to a plastic pistol, which blew bubbles. Batteries were required, but were easily found as most homes are awash with batteries these days.
For the rest of the day, we were bubble-covered and enjoyed every minute of it. It reminded me of simpler times, blowing bubbles with just a little ring of wire and a container of some soapy liquid — no batteries required, as only torches and motor cars ever needed them.
My 4-year-old of last week will be 80 in 2100 and what, I wondered, will he recall of his fourth birthday in 2024?
Since then he may have lived through an even greater Great Depression, possibly a Third World War and even, perhaps, survived Covid 65 and Covid 91.
In his Maori Hill retirement home where the waves of the Pacific Ocean ripple gently on the shore just a few streets below, he may be the only man in the Hopeless Case Wing with a collection of books printed on real paper bequeathed him by his grandfather long ago.
His own grandchildren for whom reading books and speaking English are unknown skills will marvel at his ability to do both. Just as I marvelled at my own grandfather’s skill at rolling his own with one hand while the other controlled the steering wheel.
The birthday boy may have survived to old age through the wonder of a marvellous pill which cures cancer or have driven a motor car powered by some new fuel which people could actually afford.
He will remember his 2024 fourth birthday as the last time the world appeared to revolve around him and his skills and charms. He may remember his grandfather praising his bubble-blowing skills and rabbiting on about how it was done without batteries in his day.
As he watches the fun, his wrinkled face will beam with pleasure when he sees his grandson cast aside the Boys’ Own Brain Surgery Kit (batteries required) in favour of a bubble-blowing outfit and spend the rest of the day bombarding the relatives with moist orbs.
Balloons burst and bubbles blown will cosset him in dreamy nostalgia and he will be delivered to the rest-home a happy man, pleased that in a changing world some things never change.
— Jim Sullivan is a Patearoa writer.