A birthday celebrates a milestone in making it to another year, and acknowledges how special and valued an individual is. Wilde Lake junior, Logan Bitner-Parish, celebrated her sister’s birthday during quarantine. “Birthdays are important because being born and being alive are special things,” says Bitner-Parish. “It’s important to make people feel loved.” Atholton senior, Cameron Goodwin-Schoen, has celebrated the birthdays of numerous friends in this time. “Birthdays are a way to bring people together and celebrate someone,” he says. “Everyone has one and they deserve celebration.”

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Brooke Webster is visited by friends standing six feet apart on her birthday.

With social distancing guidelines requiring people to self-quarantine and maintain at least six feet apart, gathering a large group of friends together to play games, sing, and eat cake is both unsafe and breaking the law under Governor Hogan’s stay at home orders. However, some families are getting creative with how they celebrate. Emily Erwin, an Atholton junior, had a drive-by style celebration that her mom had organized. Friends drove by with hand-made posters, shouting happy birthdays, and going that extra mile to make sure she still had a birthday to remember. Wilde Lake sophomore Noah Steele celebrated his birthday in the fifth week of quarantine. “ For my birthday, I played games over Facetime with my friends and ordered food from Chick-Fil-A, which was more exciting than I was expecting it to be.” 

One unexpected consequence of the stay-at-home order has been more time with family. For better or worse, many are spending their birthdays at home with their families and pets. And for some, it’s a welcome gift. Centennial student Chris Lidard and Wilde Lake junior Amber Putman enjoyed having their birthdays with family, and using the extra special time with them to go on a bike ride and bake a cake.

Birthdays can be  really special events – they celebrate the life of a person, and how special their existence is to everyone around them. Being in quarantine has altered our day to day lives, and taken many things from us, but one thing it can’t take is the joy of getting older, and knowing you have people there for you wishing you the best life you can possibly have. As Wilde Lake junior Ekim Davis says, “Being born is a blessing, and another year of life deserves to be celebrated.”