We are taught “it’s the thought that counts.” Sometimes, that’s not enough.

Birthdays ending in zero are cause for celebration, not just good thoughts. They deserve a proper acknowledgement that a life lived between the last zero and this one was worthwhile. In-between, there were 3,650 mostly routine, sometimes tragic, occasionally joyous, never easy days of fighting the good fight and keeping the faith. If a decade spent in the trenches doesn’t deserve feting, what does?

Amidst the ordinary, we crave special. We need occasions that swaddle us in attention, satiate us with milk and honey instead of drive-thru and microwave, assure us by others’ deeds as well as words that we are unique, treasured and appreciated.

This may include, but should not be limited to, receipt of a hurriedly purchased red rose wrapped in plastic from Safeway, dinner out at IHOP, or a family visit to a movie chosen by the grandkids.

When the zero birthdays approach, STOP! THINK! What does she really want? Who is she, really, besides the fulcrum of our lives? She who cooks Thanksgiving dinner, makes Christmas happen, keeps the light burning in the window, knows something’s wrong when she hears “hello,” is worthy of anything and everything. So put some mental muscle in it and come up with a worthy surprise.

In a family tuned to NASCAR, is she PBS? Does she spend half her life frying hamburgers and grilling steak but secretly wants to be a vegetarian? Does she long for Venice in a gondola when we repeatedly offer Vegas in an RV?

In the decade between my last zero and the one rolling over my psychic odometer this week, I realized I never really knew my mother as a woman apart. I didn’t know she was a poet until I discovered too late the paper grocery sacks stuffed with her hand-written words in her bathroom linen closet.

I’d forgotten about all the rhinestone earrings in the World War II photos until I unearthed them from the back of her makeup drawer. Mildewed boxes behind the furnace yielded a trove of hand-tinted portraits of my mother starring as a college coed in “Carmen” and “The Marriage of Figaro.”

“Didn’t you know she wanted to be an opera singer?” one of her high school chums asked? No. I was 27 by the time I heard my first opera, in London. There were no arias in our house, only Sinatra and the Rat Pack singing the blues.

I did nice things for my mother on holidays, but it never occurred to me to throw a blowout shindig to celebrate her life. I was absent for her last three zero birthdays; when she recounted them over long distance, there was a well-intentioned whiff of 5 p.m., “what are we gonna do tonight for Mom?” about them. I wonder if she ever let herself lament what she missed.

It was mother, after all, who insisted that all our birthdays, zeroes or not, be celebrations: no chores, our favorite foods, as many friends as we wanted for cake and ice cream, extravagantly wrapped presents, effusive cards, a handwritten letter in her beautiful cursive.

It was Mom who found the Red Plate and kept it safe in the top cupboard for every birthday, anniversary, engagement, my brother’s return from the Navy, my dad’s retirement from the Air Force, visits from old friends – though I can’t ever recall it at her place setting.

Getting the Red Plate with its white YOU ARE SPECIAL TODAY letters around the rim singled us out, meant whoever had it was entitled to the extra pork chop, could stay up late, got an extra week’s allowance.

When I was 16, my mother invited all our friends to “share in the day our little girl becomes a young lady.” I wore a pink dotted-Swiss frock, got a Timex bracelet watch in a velvet-lined box, and blushingly accepted my first champagne toast (I drank ginger ale). Mom beamed, dad cried (he’d had no part in the planning or execution of the event), and I nearly burst with happiness. I ate off the Red Plate for a whole week.

As I prepare to change the number in front of the zero, I don’t actually want to be 10 years old in a silly hat again. But I still long to be fussed over as if I were. The higher the number, the more I want cake, ice cream, a whistle to blow and a balloon to pop.

Conversely, the passing years have diminished my stack of gaily-wrapped boxes, eliminated the corny cards with a 10-dollar bill tucked inside, and ended my family’s conspiracy of surprise.

There is hardly anyone who knows, let alone remembers, my special day, and fewer still that have the time to care. My parents are gone, my sibling is AWOL, and my friends are all busy keeping track of their own kids’ and grandkids’ special occasions. As my dad used to say in lean times, “pickin’s are thin.”

Watching my mounting dread as my special day approached, my husband decided to throw a surprise party at our house, but two days before the event he came down with the flu. I cancelled it five hours before the guests were due; anybody that miserable deserved to suffer in peace.

As he coughed and sneezed his way into a deep sleep, I settled into my usual chair to gratefully read cards from three ever-faithful friends and savor two perfect gifts from my two best pals.

Then I kept a promise to my mother.

“One day I’ll be gone,” she’d said on my 40th, “and there may not be anybody to share your birthday with, so here is the Red Plate. Put cake on it, tell yourself you are special, and know that wherever I am, I am celebrating with you.”

I lick the last of the chocolate icing off my index finger, then raise my jelly jar of champagne and say aloud, for both of us: "YOU ARE SPECIAL TODAY."

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On the occasion of this birthday with a zero in it, read 25 Things I Know for Sure

How do you celebrate special times? Join the discussion in Elsewhere in America

Read all of my blogs on Eons

To read more about Tad, go to TadBartimus.com.