I Was Born.

With my birthday approaching, I knew I had to get my driver's license renewed before the 27th when it would expire.  I certainly didn't want to take the driver's tests again, so today I finally made it to the DMV. When I presented  myself to the dispenser of licenses and handed over my old license, which happened to be one from when we lived in Tennessee,  she informed me I would have to go down the hall to the state examiner, since it was an out-of-state license.

"Do you have a birth certificate or a passport?" the clerk asked.  I told her I wasn't sure if I  had a birth certificate, and I certainly didn't have a passport.  "Well, that's what you have to have," she said, summarily dismissing me.

We had some errands to do and decided to do them before going home to search for the birth certificate.  I'd remembered seeing it sometime in the not-too-distant past, but I didn't remember where. And I had just gone through all kinds of papers, pictures and mementos during a spell of nostalgia.  Oh, God, let me find it, I prayed.

"Howard, do you think you filed it with your birth certificate?" I asked my OCD mate.  He told me he has three copies of his.  He said he wasn't sure, but when we got home I helped him look through folders.  I gave up and went to put away the groceries we'd bought.  I knew we couldn't get another copy before my birthday, and anyway, we were going away for a few days for a family reunion.  I resigned myself to having to take the driver's test again.

Just then Howard called me.  "Did you find it?" I asked, but he didn't answer.  I went into the bedroom and he held up a folded sheet of paper tantalizingly.  "You found it!" I shouted gleefully.  I looked at the old document and marveled again at the data.  Mama was 29 when I was born, and Daddy was 34.  I couldn't imagine them being so young!  Then I saw the old familiar name of our then-neighbor as someone in attendance at my home birth (the doctor didn't get there in time.)  The ink was faded and a little illegible in places, but there was my name, weight and other vital information.

Back at the DMV, the examiner studied my birth certificate for an interminably long time.  "Is there a problem?" I finally asked.

"Well," he said, "Right here where it says 'boy or girl?' nothing has been checked."  I smiled, because I had noticed the oversight, or perhaps the check mark had worn off.  After  all, the info had been recorded in 1940, a few months after I was born.

"Well, I can assure you that I'm a girl, and the mother of six children!" I said.  He said he'd had one other case like that, and he'd had to issue a 6-month permit to the applicant, until she had her birth certificate amended.  That didn't set too well with me!  Much ado about nothing!

He decided to call someone in the front office.  "She was born in 1939," I heard him say.  Then, "No, she is not 39, she was born in 39!" he explained.  Then he said okay, hung up and smiled.  "She said, 'That  means she is 75!  Don't worry about it!'"  My sentiments exactly!  "If you had been 39, you would have had to get it amended," he said, "But you're okay."

I got my picture taken, was handed a new license and was only required to pay $4.00.  What a relief!  Thank you, God!