I love Ruth Kraus’ book A Hole is to Dig. It was one of the early ones I read to Elliot and Emma when they were little. In this sweet and simply illustrated book, holes are for digging, looking through, stepping into and hiding things in. Between the covers of A Hole is to Dig, life is complete and everything fits: doors are for shutting and opening, the world is so you have something to stand on.

I thought of this book recently after a conversation with an elderly woman who has a hole in her life that has yet to be filled. We were talking birthdays and bonded over the fact that we were both  April babies. If you’re a Jewish baby boomer, born on the cusp, belly or tail of spring, you got cheated every few birthdays. Instead of a nicely leavened high rising layer cake, swirled with mounds of frosting, you got a kosher for Passover sponge cake, dry as desert sand.

We chuckled over this additional deprivation, but then the conversation took a turn into a different corner of the past. “My mother never made me a good birthday party,” the woman said. “Even when it wasn’t Passover, there was never soda, never candy, never the right kind of cake.” I made some sort of clucking noises of sympathy and we turned to other things.

I haven’t been able to shake the sense of this woman’s loss, her palpable disappointment, a hole from childhood that has yet to be filled.  It occurred to me that she needs to throw herself a big birthday party replete with a gooey cake, candles, soda, candy and whatever else her inner child pines for. She should invite her best friends and play games and celebrate having lived as long as she has.

When we’re children, if we’re fortunate children, holes are to dig, look through, step in and hide things in. Only as we age do the holes of our childhood experiences leave voids that pockmark our inner terrain like a slice of Swiss cheese. No one can fill these holes but us. And we must. Or we should. Whether it’s throwing a birthday party for yourself or taking that art class your mom couldn’t afford or learning to sing despite your second grade choir teacher’s pronouncement that you sing off key, when you get to a certain age, holes are no longer to dig.  Holes are to fill.