By Emma Pettiette

I have hosted birthday parties for one dozen animals.


With my chin pressed against the dresser ledge, I stared into tiny, blinking alien eyes. My hermit crab, Lava Girl, remained rigid in the tank. She maintained a single position for hours, with her claws tucked neatly before her, utterly devoid of celebration. It was her birthday. My breath casted wet smears on the tank when I shrilly serenaded her.

I plunged a new, larger shell beneath a plastic palm tree in her tank — a birthday present.

She only hid behind her sponge in response.

Unbeknownst to her, the selection of which shell to give her was a time-consuming point of contention at the pet store. Special efforts were also devoted to scrubbing the tank for a tidy celebration space. Lava Girl’s reaction would suggest these efforts were pointless, and yet, my red cheeks were split into a maddening grin as I excitedly observed her. I hoped somehow she could feel the love radiating off my face.

There is something captivating about narrowing your appreciation for existence to one thing at a time.

The prime real estate around the table during the birthday song is usually considered to be just beside the birthday boy or girl. I felt very differently. You would find me directly across the table, usually accepting the elbows of a camera-bearing mother prancing around with a lighter. I was captivated by this view to take in all the sensations, like the warm light projected by miniature flames that would form a mini halo around everyone’s faces.

I loved to watch people blow out their candles with the kind of relaxed expression people have when they focus on the things they hope for.

My friends and I pioneered our own tradition: after the candles are blown out, we always light them again. This time, all the guests huddle around the cake, shut their eyes, and make a wish for the birthday girl or boy. Immediately after, the room would erupt with laughter and cheers as the candlelight extinguished, casting the table in soft shadows once more. The candles stood at attention with empty, ash-coated wicks like small soldiers stuck in buttercream frosting snow. Then, it would be time for cake.

I love birthdays because they celebrate the thing we all don’t understand yet empathize with: the passage of time. Standing on the opposite end of a table or outside of a plastic tank allows me to experience the magic of celebration. Each passing year prompts me to remember the things I love, pets and humans alike.

Pet birthdays are softer and quieter. Their lack of obligation always made me feel imaginative. We don’t need to celebrate our pets’ birthdays the way we do our own, but we do so with frivolity, silliness, and joy. I should know better than anyone: I have hosted birthday parties for a dozen animals.

Following my first trip to the countryside terrain of East Texas, I developed an inappropriate obsession with mammoth snapping turtles. My mom bought me a red-eared snapping turtle as a safer and less prehistoric alternative. His name was Domino. Turtles, like hermit crabs, are rather antisocial creatures and prefer to be left alone. Domino would stretch on a large rock and flex his webbed feet at the heat lamp.

On Domino’s birthday, I released him in my Barbie dollhouse. His neck stretched around tiny stiletto heels and plastic plates of painted food. To my dismay, he was too large to balance on the zebra-print doll bed. The dollhouse was quickly disorganized with carrot shreds, turtle pellets, and tipped furniture. Instead of enjoying his change of scenery, Domino spent most of the day attempting to escape.

It was its own kind of party, though he did not understand it.

I used to celebrate birthdays with a slice of cake and pastel balloons in the corners. As I got older, birthdays assumed a more complicated, heartfelt undertone. The passage of time became more noticeable, and birthdays seemed to roll by faster than ever. There were some years where it felt like there wasn’t a single moment worth celebrating — where 365 days felt like one long night in which I tossed and turned and did nothing but make unflinching eye contact with a scrape on the wall.

I was stuck clutching at clock hands as I tried to appreciate my life from a bird’s eye view, while simultaneously living in the moment. These days, birthdays have become more of a pause, a day to reflect and celebrate the past as much as the present. Birthdays are a day to live in fleeting glimpses.

Sometimes it is easier to celebrate the existence of an eager puppy than to wear a party hat for yourself.

When we celebrate our pets, we celebrate our capacity for care, silliness, and finding delight within the fleeting. These parties make our love tangible: something to wrap, record, and mark on our calendars. We don’t throw our pets parties to be thanked, but rather to step back and remember the passage of time with a companion who makes the years fly by.

22 years and two dozen pets later, I continue to recognize the birthdays of my pets.

I have a large tabby cat named Rigby whom I celebrate every single day, but especially on his birthday: November 14th. I crouch beside him on the floor as he purrs boredly and his tail sways like a curious cobra about to strike.

He watches his reflection in a bowl of milk with big tapioca pearl eyes and drooping whiskers. He plunges his tongue beneath the ghost-white puddle and sniffs it once more before trotting away completely unintrigued, perhaps even with an undertone of disappointment.

I didn’t even get to finish wishing him a “Happy Birthday.”

For him, this was nothing out of the ordinary. He had no recognition of his birthday and no cause for celebration. I stared down at his eyes pressed shut against my waist, his purrs sending vibrations down to the mattress, his claws extending in an affectionate knead.

Candles on a cake are but semantics when you’re surrounded by things worth celebrating. ■