At the end of August I wrote a column about Teresa Strasser, whose mother spent a lifetime showing up and loving and healing from the deep, quiet childhood wound of having absolutely no one show up at her birthday party. Every year, Strasser shares the story to honor her mom on her birthday and, in the process, nudge us all toward a little more kindness.

“Days before she died,” Strasser wrote on X, “her last words to me were, ‘NO FUNERAL.’ And I knew why. It had been 6 decades since she sat in a wilting paper party hat, staring at a door that never opened, but my mom’s shunning still stung. She’d be damned if she was going to get no-showed again.

“Her last wish was from the broken heart of a child,” Strasser continued, “which makes you rethink every child blowing out candles at every bounce house & neighborhood park & dining room in the world. … If a canned air trampoline park or cardboard crust pizza joint doesn’t seem like a real good time, I get it. But in honor of my dead mom, remember that a child’s birthday party is sacred ground, even if that ground bounces, or is covered in garish carpet.”

I tracked Strasser down to learn more about her mom and her legacy. As soon as my column was published, I started hearing from readers with their own birthday party stories. Stories that make you wince at what little kids’ hearts endure. Stories that remind you how many moments and memories we’re all carrying around, like tiny shields, hoping to protect ourselves from re-injury.

Then there was Kathie Howe’s story.

Howe was an eighth-grade language arts teacher at Lukancic Middle School in Romeoville, Illinois, from 2002 until she retired in 2019. She became a teacher after selling insurance for 25 years.

“I loved teaching,” Howe told me. “I loved eighth grade. I loved the snark. I’m only 5 feet tall so I got all the names. ‘Mrs. Howe’s a sexy midget. Mrs. Howe’s a munchkin. Mrs. Howe’s a beast with swag’ — I have the T-shirt somewhere to prove that last one.”

Five years into her teaching gig, Howe was in her classroom after school one day when she heard some students in the hallway decorating a friend’s locker for her birthday.

“They kept coming in to get tape and scissors,” she said. “I told them, ‘I have gift wrap, I have crepe paper, I have anything you could possibly need.’ I had this magical cabinet of crap — fishing line, nail polish remover, you name it.”

At some point in the decorating process, one of the girls asked Howe about her best birthday celebration ever. Howe was approaching 47 at that point.

She thought long and hard and came up short. Her younger brother was mentally disabled. Her parents were consumed with the day-to-day stressors of life. Celebrating birthdays wasn’t in the cards.

“I just said, ‘I don’t know. I never had a birthday party,’” Howe recalled. “The kids were horrified. ‘Nobody ever gave you a birthday party?’”

Howe explained that it just wasn’t part of her upbringing. She told them how happy it made her to see them decorating their friends’ lockers for their birthdays—to make sure they felt celebrated and cherished. She went home and put the whole thing out of her mind.

Until May.

On her 47th birthday, Howe walked into her classroom at 7 a.m., like always, and noticed immediately that something was off. The posters that hung around the room, filled with inspirational sayings and cute animals? Covered in party hats. The desks? Party hats. The rubber rats she bought at Joann Fabrics to serve as class mascots? Party hats.

By 7:30, kids started rolling in with more decorations. Soon a giant sheet cake arrived, courtesy of a parent. Then the punch and paper cups arrived. Then the singing began.

Mrs. Howe was having her first ever birthday party.

“Every kid in eighth grade made his way through my classroom to sing happy birthday that day,” she told me. “The jazz band came in and played happy birthday. The entire freaking day, from the first bell on, I heard happy birthday.”

That’s a lot for one heart to take in.

“I had every conceivable emotion you could possibly have,” Howe said. “There was absolute horror — 'Oh my God they’re making such a big deal about me and they don’t do this for any other teachers.’ There was complete surprise. I was astonished. I was thrilled. I had a little bit of sorrow that I had to get to that advanced age to have my first big birthday party and it took 13- and 14-year-old girls to make it happen.”

Mostly, though, she felt grateful — for young people, who she delighted in. For the chance to teach young people, a job she said she never took for granted.

“I went to every single volleyball game,” Howe said. “I went to boys basketball games. I went to the wrestling matches. I always told the kids on the first day, ‘I already respect you. You don’t have to earn my respect. You’ll have to work to lose my respect.’ Every day I went home with my cup either a little full or mostly full.”

Mostly full, maybe spilling over a little bit, on her 47th birthday.

All because a kid thought to ask a question. And a grown-up decided to put down her tiny shield and answer it. And a group of kids saw an opening — to heal a wound, to brighten a day, to stack some joy next to sorrow, to sing, to say, “We don’t like that ending. Let’s write a new one.”

What a lesson.

©2024 Tribune News Service. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.