My son just turned seven. On the same day, my father would have turned 73 if he were still alive.
He's been dead for nine months now, which means I've been carrying this grief around for as long as I carried Colter, my son.
To ease the pain of honoring these two births -- which occurred 66 years apart -- my stepmother is visiting us for the week, soaking up the Florida sun and my son's love as we face another first in this year of mourning.
At breakfast, Colter opened his present from my stepmother, Sandra June, his Nonnie. As he read the card out loud, I realized it was the first time he had received a birthday card from her that wasn't also signed from Papa Sam. The simple absence telegraphs her loneliness.
She is so grateful just to be around us. She doesn't need anything but to wake up and know we're in the next room, ready to listen and care.
She carries a picture of my dad in her purse and puts it on her nightstand before drifting off to sleep. Does she dream of him? He used to have terrible nightmares. Once, he lifted his arm and pointed an imaginary gun at some dream figure who was haunting him, then shot. Does she miss even that?
In the morning, she puts the picture in her purse. Is it possible to store our memories outside of ourselves, so we can retrieve them but not hold them so closely?
She has a word-search magazine by her seat at the dining room table to keep her company while she sits. This woman -- who inherited me from an unstable mother and raised me along with her three sons -- was always home after school, baking sweets for our friends and preparing well-balanced dinners for us.
She barely eats now. And she almost never cooks. The weight of the leftovers is too much to bear. At the grocery store, she can't stop herself from shopping for a full house, and still makes meat loaf for 15, whole chickens, and fresh vegetables.
When we visited for Thanksgiving, I was able for the first time to open the freezer freely, without fear of being found out or of having something fall on my foot. Only tape residue remained around the door to prove that it once held more than it could contain.
She lived to feed and care for others, and now there's no one left to attend to but her 93-year-old mother, who is in a nursing home nearby.
Sandy moves more slowly, suddenly less motivated and more aware of her own needs, not distracted by mine (the baby) or my father's, which became all-consuming over the years.
Soon, she will pack and move out of the lakefront home they shared for 23 years. She'll miss the moments that trigger even the trivial memories of a marriage: the puzzle they did to help minimize his Parkinson's tremors; the Legos he built with his grandchildren; the chocolates he wouldn't leave for guests to eat and she wouldn't remove from the coffee table.
They read the newspaper to each other. It used to wake me in the morning, annoyed, as they laughed loudly and talked about events over coffee, from one room to the next. They bickered about business, retiring too late for them to enjoy much of the time together. They watched television -- "Hill Street Blues," "Dynasty," "Cheers."
In her new home, there will be no remnants. Nothing he was last to touch or sit on. Nothing with his fingerprints, his imprint, his smell. Only the lingering awareness that something is missing.
Colter doesn't seem to notice the empty seat at the table. He doesn't remember that his Nonnie and Papa Sam were in the room when he was born. Or maybe he doesn't feel the loss because he knows my father is a part of his very DNA, that they share more than the same birthday and always will.
We spend the day at the beach, and let the heat burn away the sadness, the waves wash away the tears.
Though celebrating this day without my father is bittersweet, it reminds me that after the cake, presents, and party, birthdays are about family -- the ones you choose, the ones that choose you, and the ones who remain, always.
This LifeFiles column originally appeared on about 70 TV station websites managed by Internet Broadcasting Systems.
Comments