A Birthday, Fourth of July, 2017
Last night I took care of something in the kitchen before bed as fireworks went off several times in the distance. I was tired and hoped they would not last very long. Then I thought about how tomorrow was the 4th. I thought about my cousin’s baby being woken up. I thought about how people react differently to the festivities. Then I remembered that the 4th is my grandmother’s birthday. I cried.
First came finding out and the days following. A while afterwards came the funeral. There was Thanksgiving Dinner with cousins and without her, and then my brother’s birthday. At Chanukah we were given gifts she bought for us on her last trip but never returned to give. Then came Mother’s Day, when we would customarily bestow flowers on her and my mother, and her hands were not there to receive them ... Then there are all those other spasmodic bouts of grief that come along the way and sometimes make you feel foolish. Another ‘first’ has passed.
I logged on to Facebook today and one of the notifications said, “It’s Edith Dacks’s birthday today. Wish her well!”. The Messenger app prompts me to message her. And what if I sent a message to her account? There are few words to describe the slue of emotions in response to these small encounters. My heart soughs.
July 4th. It remains the anniversary of her birth though she is not here. If she were present on earth we would say she turned 82 today. A birthday.
May her memory be a blessing.
