Jan 7: your birthday


Dear Mom,

 We should be celebrating your birthday.  Instead I am trying to remember if I was actually with you on your last birthday 3 years ago. I don't think we were.  That Christmas (2021) we had Covid and I didn't come to see you until the last day of 2021 when it was safe.  When your full-time caregiver had her first holiday so I stayed over for a day (or was it two?) Three years ago seems like an eternity.

 My Google photos tell me that your grandson and I did come to see you later in the month.  It was the next to last time you saw him.   I should have been there for your birthday, but...Hindsight is always 20/20.

 You said it always snowed on your birthday.  This year the snow came a little early.  If you were still living at the Jersey shore I don't know if I would have made it.  The snow in North Jersey was next to nothing, but further south...you never know with weather patterns.

 This, the day of your birthday (the day after Epiphany), while there is not much snow on the ground, it is BRUTALLY cold.  It would be less so if it weren't for the gusts of wind that blow over just about everything in its path.  (Including me this morning as I waited for the bus.)  The house rattled all last night.  There were boxes in the streets this morning. (Recycling trucks are going to have fun today).  It was bitter waiting for the bus this morning (my first morning back in the office in 2025).  I'm not looking forward to the ride home as I can never time that as well as the morning commute.  I took the earliest bus (for me) that I could because it was the one that was closest to home and I was worried about the ice on the sidewalks and didn't want to walk on the street to catch the later (slightly further away) bus.

 Your grandson asked me yesterday what your favorite flower was.  I know he wanted to bring flowers to the cemetery for you today.  I told him not to.  I'm trying to be pragmatic, like you would.  Honestly, I don't know what your favorite flower was.  Dad would get you roses sometimes.  You kept orchids in the bay window at the shore.  (I've actually kept some of those alive.)  You had Christmas cacti some years.  There were daffodils in the yard and I think you really liked the hibiscuses that grew in front of the house.  (I wish I could have pulled those up and saved them.)  You were more about trees though.  The weeping willow in the front of the house.  The dogwood in front of the house that I grew up in.  (And that was mercilessly cut down, along with over a dozen more healthy trees, by the new owners.)  You liked plants and I've (somewhat) managed to keep the Tradescantia Zebrina (aka Wandering Jew) that you "gifted" me alive.  

 I'm not the one with the green thumb.  That is your grandson.  He, like his grandfather, likes digging in the dirt and growing things.  (Or is it just a phase?)  He, like you, can keep a plant alive.

 He still drives your car (with your personalized plate).  I worry that it's getting a bit old (2011) and it had 2 issues that would cost more to get fixed than I could get for the car.  (And I'm pretty sure even with all the flaws, your car dealer friend would buy it from me.)  He takes relatively good care of it.  He's gotten really good at backing it up into the garage.  (He's better than me, but that's not saying much.)  He will never be like your father and back it through the rear wall.  (How many times did he do that?)  I do think we will need to get him a new car, but he wants a sedan, a Buick sedan, and they don't make them anymore, so...

 Your friends who I have (sort of) kept in touch with (at least with Christmas cards) miss you.  They miss you and dad, but honestly, mostly you.  (You were, after all, the more social of the two.)  I miss you too.  (That goes without saying, right?)  They say you would be proud of me and happy that I bought a house in the Poconos.  I'm not so sure.  Sometimes I wonder if I've done the right thing.  

 Did you ever wonder that?  You always seemed so sure of yourself.  I am NOT.  I question everything!  I worry.  (That I DID get from you.)  

 For most of your life (or at least the years that I knew you), you were a strong woman.  Maybe even a tough woman?  I try to be so too.  (I especially tried to be so at the end of your life...did I succeed?  I will always regret that I didn't get to bring you home at the end.)  I think I am more flexible than you were.  (You were very staunch in your thoughts and ideas.)  But I try to be strong like you.  I try to give to my family, as you gave to us.  I want you to be proud of me.  I still want your approval.  I still need your love.

 So although it may be silly to say it (and I don't like it when people do this, but here we go), Happy Birthday mom.  I miss you.  I love you.

 

Me




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