Happy Birthday 2 U
At the Dickens’ House Museum in London, there is a café at the entrance to the first floor. In this café, where you can taste recipe sets that appear even in novels on the menu, when his birthday comes back, cards with congratulatory messages are stuck on the wall. Of course, on the blackboard with the menu on it, a celebration message “Happy Birthday, Charles!” is written.
For more than 100 years since Charles Dickens died, people celebrate and remember his birthday rather than his death. Birthday is like that. Jesus’ birthday, December 24th, is a global festival regardless of religion.
From ourselves to friends, family, neighbors, colleagues, lovers, even objects and spaces, we rejoice on loved ones’ birthdays as our own to pray for living a tough and difficult world until the day they are born and die or encourage them to endure their lives well. Birthday is a day in which people send messages of supporting to each other with the desire to find their dreams firmly in the future despite the rough waves and storms of the world. “To be or not to be!” Just like Shakespeare’s words, in a harsh world that crosses life and death, we live on different days once a year with comfort and courage.