I started it to coddle my broken heart. It was a way to look outside myself on a day I knew I would be tempted to collapse in. A way to address one of life’s big cruelties because I couldn’t address the one that took her. It was a way for me to put my hand to the plow and put some change in motion, live up to the love a little bit. I had no idea. The first donation floored me. Because they count it in people. So with $60, two people were represented. Two people I will never meet who will be directly affected by my mother –…
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My Dirty (water) Thirty
For 29 years, February 4 started with breakfast in bed, a candle on pancakes, a few cards and presents, and a softly sung “Happy Birthday.” When I moved away Mom sent a box full of streamers and pancake mix to my new husband with careful instructions. She showed up in my apartment bedroom on my 23rd birthday when I lived alone so that I didn’t wake up by myself. My parents had balloons delivered to my elementary desk so I stood out all day. My dad took me out of school every year to have lunch at Marie Callender’s (he always offered to take me anywhere, it just didn’t feel…
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The Best Birthday Party
A birthday party for a three year old is usually not thrown in between hospice visits and medication reviews. Celebrating birth seems almost vulgar around the dying. But he has given up a lot without his consent and I couldn’t stand the thought of his giving this up, too. Birthdays are a big deal for us; we start talking about them months in advance when we realize that we are “two and a half” years old. He cycled through several themes and set his heart on a Paw Patrol party. He’d tuck his chin and wrinkle his nose and his sweet little mouth curled into a smile when he talked…
