Miss Day and I celebrate our birthdays on the same day, and thanks to our commonality, she’s left an indelible impact on my upbringing.

The very first classic film I ever saw was “Tea For Two” (1950), starring Day and Gordon MacRae, by my grandmother; I was less than 5 years old. Something about Day’s inviting smile and golden, Technicolor locks of hair, singing the same song my grandmother would sing whenever she lit a kettle on the stove, has stayed with me into adulthood as I find myself humming the same tune in kind.

“She shares the same birthday as you, don’t you know,” my grandmother once said during a home screening of a Day movie. “She does?” I replied excitedly and demanded, “well, then we must celebrate her birthday, too!”

From age 6 onward, celebrating my birthday with a Doris Day movie became tradition in my household, starting with “With Six, You Get Eggroll” (1968), starring Day and Brian Keith. In the birthdays to follow, my family gathered around the TV to view “The Pajama Game” (1957), “The Man Who Knew Too Much” (1956), “That Touch of Mink” (1962), “Lullaby of Broadway” (1951), “The West Point Story” (1950), and “Pillow Talk” (1959). Each birthday ended with a cake on the kitchen table and candles being lit. My grandmother would jokingly say “and a Happy Birthday to Doris too” each time before I’d blow out the candles.

In my household, Day was more than a face on screen or a song vibrating from our stereo. She was a bonding experience, an heirloom passed down from my grandmother to me. She was an idyllic symbol of her generation that represented a fantasy she would never obtain herself.

Through her films, I learned more about my grandmother’s own life. “I remember seeing this film in the theaters with Anthony,” she remembered fondly of her deceased husband and my grandfather who I never had a chance to know. “I had always dreamed of being a showgirl,” she once said to me during my 12th birthday screening of “The Glass Bottom Boat: (1966). “I never told anyone that before,” as she turned to me with a shy grin on her face. I felt special that day to have her confide in me something so personal.

Unfortunately, my grandmother recently died. This will be my first birthday without her. I’m not confident I’ll have the emotional strength to watch a Doris Day movie without her, but I’m grateful for the important personal memories Miss Day gave to me — memories she’ll never know exist. It comforts me, however, that Doris is still living on this earth. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to thank her for the bond she created between my grandmother and me, but she’s always welcomed at my house for birthday cake.