last birthday

I've mentioned "lasts" before. There are handfuls of them. They trip you up, without you realizing. You will find new ones without realizing there could be any more. Earlier this month I turned 32. It was my second birthday since Dad died and 17th (!!) since Mom died. And while I had friends in town to celebrate, and new Los Angeles friends who joined us, I struggled to shake my deep sadness of not being able to share my life (and aging) with either of my parents anymore.

I have always made a big deal out of my birthday. Always planning a big bash of some kind for myself, often including multiple smaller celebrations or trips throughout the month of March. My NYC friends lovingly though playfully call March my "birth-month" rather than birthday. What some don't know, or forget, is why.

My mother died when I was 15 years old after a two year battle with lymphoma that really can only be described as hard core. All these years later I am still haunted by some of the things I saw during that time. My last birthday Mom was present for was my 14th. She was diagnosed the fall of 1991, and by the next spring she was already bald and aged, close to 6 months into her chemo treatments. Several months later she was suppose to have gone into remission but the cancer came back even stronger just before I started my freshman year of high school in 1992. After several months of incredibly brutal and intensive chemo treatments Mom was suppose to be preparing for a bone marrow transplant. She went in for a final check up and was told the cancer still had not slowed down and they were sending her home to die instead. The oncologist estimated Mom had 6 - 12 months max and as a last ditch effort to prolong that time, radiation was recommended to slow the tumor growth. Mom opted for what she thought would give her more time and so went to Sonoma county for treatments for six weeks. So my mother was in Santa Rosa on my 15th birthday and it dawned on me that morning that my last birthday with my mother had actually been the year before, without me ever realizing it. Mom died that September, on the 4th (exactly six months after my birthday) just about seven months after the final diagnosis.

Mom had always made a big deal out of my and Rhea's birthday. She would wake me up every year at 6:08am, the time I was born, and tell me the story of my birthday. This always disgusted but also thrilled me. It was always so overwhelming to be that loved by someone. When she was gone, it was just awful. That year I turned 15 was the first she did not tell the story, she had called to talk to me that day, but it was late afternoon and she was obviously tired. Waking up on my birthday was so very painful after that, and so I compensated by taking what my mother had given me - the thrill of my continued life. She so delighted in my sister and me, was so proud of us. So I started celebrating my birthday big, because that is she would want: for us to feel special and important.

Part of that new approach created a tradition with Dad and me. Dad was often bad with dates, and it was not like he forgot my birthday, he knew it was early March, but he often did not send a card in time. So I took to reminding him. After Mom died, but Rhea and I remained in California in other homes, Dad and I spoke every single Sunday. I would call him collect from where ever I was living. I continued to call him every Sunday until I could afford to call him on my own dime in my 20's...but still called him every Sunday for years and years. It was only the last few years of his life, when he had so much change and upheaval and moves, that our weekly routine had altered to a couple times a month instead. During these Sundays, when my birthday would draw near, I would start reminding him of the exact number of days he had until he had to send me a birthday card before it would end up being late. Then, about 3-5 days before my birthday I would break tradition and call him midweek to re-remind him about sending me a card. This song and dance became another routine of ours, an annual one.

Every year he'd hum and hah, saying he was looking for the right one, he had been busy, it may be late and so on...but inevitably a card would show up, on time, and be the perfect one. His softness or humor always shining through. He often would call on my birthday and explain the card, why he picked it. On my 20th birthday he picked one with a blond little girl in a field of wheat, her face turned away. He told me he picked it because it reminded him of me, when I was that age. My long white blond hair, the attitude but also wistfulness in the shoulders visible in the card. Like I said, it is overwhelming to be that loved by someone.

So, as lasts go, I did not know my 30th birthday card would be my last from my father. And it was shortly before my 31st birthday, which was not even six months after Dad died, that I accidentally came across that card and cried. It was perfect and funny all at once and Dad and I had had a good hoot and giggle over it.

I am so grateful to have had parents that really loved me and delighted in me. I have friends who work overtime their whole lives to win their parents approval and I had mine before I even could appreciate it. Despite that I am devastated that I will never share my birthday with them ever again. An there are so many other things I'll never get to share with them, like a wedding day, or college graduation, or their grand children. I will always try and live my life with love and embrace living and thriving, but I will still always desperately miss my parents on my birthday. Because when it really comes down to it, there is no one who loves you as much as your parents and that overwhelming love is forever missed.