He walked towards me, hand extended,
handing me a greeting card
and as if it were some strange diploma,
with a smile he shook my hand
and said “Congratulations.”

That single word confounded me,
so unexpected and unlike the greetings
more befitting of the moment –
A happy birthday, how old are you,
and an old friend’s “you’re thirty-two again.”

As if to prove it was no linguistic error,
like a computer hacker to an errant program
he penned in the card purposefully, deliberately,
for me to read and contemplate
that word again: “Congratulations.”

Now I have always contended that such a day
is not a celebration of one’s birth
or day of hatching but a feast to honor who you are
and to celebrate the life you live –
A feast I usually enjoyed in quiet solitude.

Yet that resounding word, “Congratulations”
Places the day’s perspective so eloquently
not on age nor self, but on accomplishment and obligation –
That we are here not for ourselves
but for love of God and of others.

Then the word does not seem so out-of-place.
In fact, it now seems the most appropriate!
With a single word, you have conveyed your message –
a word I intend to use as you have.
For sharing your wisdom, I thank you. Congratulations.