Forgetting Birthdays – A Mortal Sin

I saw it in his eyes, he was sad. Not because I didn’t give him a gift, not because we didn’t do something really special, but because his own family didn’t seem to remember. It was even made worse when my own mom called him to greet and yet his own mother never did.

I was also a little disheartened at how something so trivial at times be so important to some. This time I was given another glimpse at how fragile he really was. He was hurt. Even his relatively closest brother didn’t remember.

Sometimes we neglect to think of how these little things affect other {read the rest of the post here…} people. There are times that we think that it’s ok to forget these kind of things – just a way of getting even for them not remembering you own. But personally, I think that only works for acquaintances, co-workers you seldom see, bosses who are too high-up-there to even think about things like birthdays – but for close friends, cliques, family members, even your partners, I think forgetting birthdays is a mortal sin.

It was very evident in the way he acted, his eyes gave it all out. I couldn’t do anything else but see him and feel miserable too. It was his birthday, but everyone else seem to have just remembered after 3 days when he offered to buy lunch. It nearly broke my heart again into minute pieces, but I shouldn’t let him see because it will just cause him to pity himself more. I couldn’t prod him on and force him to act happy, because he really wasn’t. I could have felt irk and anger over these family members for not giving him enough importance, but he wouldn’t like that. And so I just looked on, hoping that his so-called “family” can just do the simplest thing like putting all their birthdates on their mobile phone’s calendar, organizer, their bibles, or something they look at often and can offer alarms on that self-same day.

A greeting doesn’t cost much, but it’s more valuable than a gift you bought to make up for forgetting.