Today was my birthday.
Many of you may remember that I don't just have a birthday, a birthday week or even a birthday month. No, I have a birthday season.
Birthday season starts the day after my stepson's birthday. It's not right to celebrate my birthday before his birthday is over. (But apparently, I have no problem encroaching on his birthday month. Sorry, Bryan.) And technically, I could claim “birthday season" all the way up to the day before our anniversary, which is August 13. If I wanted to do something Vic didn't, I'd say, “But it's my birthday season!" I didn't—I usually stopped being bratty at the end of June—but I could have.
But in the past few years, even I grew weary of birthday season. We scaled back our celebrations and really only did stuff on the week I took off from work—and even then, it was just a cake, a nice dinner, and a card. (Presents came whenever I would show him something I liked, and he would say, “Would that make a nice birthday present?")
It certainly made getting through today easier. That and the busy-ness of the move.
As I was talking to my friend Michelle, I mentioned that the one-year anniversary was barely a month away now, and she observed that this would be the last of the firsts—I've now been through my first anniversary without Vic; my first Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, Valentine's Day; my first time not celebrating his birthday; my first time not getting a card from Bella on Mother's Day. And she suggested that we should trademark that. The last of the firsts™. π
I wasn't really dreading the day. As with all my other firsts, Vic was such an attentive, loving husband, that every day was like my birthday. In that regard, this day was no different than any other day since he died. I bought myself an extravagant present—a new phone, which I was certain if I had pointed it out to him, he would have asked, “Would you like it for your birthday?" I spent his money on it. (Yes, I still have our money separated into his, mine and ours. Don't judge me.) I bought some chocolates. I had cards from friends and family as well as a few presents. I didn't buy a cake (mostly because I just didn't have time to pick out the perfect one—one that he would have gotten me, because he was always the cake procurer, as my friend Seth called it), but my neighbor brought one over for me. (Why am I leaving this neighborhood???) I got lots of calls and texts and emails. I took the night off from working on the move and just watched a movie and had some cake.
It was a good day.
I made it all the way to almost 10 p.m. ... before I started sobbing. It was at the part of the movie where the two people who had fallen in love were parting ways—him back to England, she staying in the States—and I was sad for them, so my eyes were already welling up. (It's not a good movie if I don't break out at least one tissue.) I don't know why that was the moment when my thoughts turned to my wish when I blew out my candle earlier in the day (yes, I put a candle in my cake, sang happy birthday to myself, and made a wish). It came out of the blue: “I wish Vic were here." I didn't think much about it at the time—it was such an obvious, pedestrian wish—but all of a sudden, I just became acutely aware that he was not, in fact, here. My wish did not come true, even though I blew out all my candle! π
Then I pulled myself together and reached into my gratitude bin for the 36 birthdays he was here. I went back through his pictures to find birthdays past, and I found years and years of ice cream cakes, poppy seed cakes with raspberry filling and cream cheese frosting, and even a sticky bun (not a whole cake, just one delicious sticky bun). My favorite:
Years and years of perfect presents (he had a knack early on of knowing what I would like, which turned into taking me on shopping sprees when I quit my job to go to college and didn't have any money to go shopping, which turned into just buying things online when we both got too lazy to get out of our sweatpants). My favorite:
(This is a Time Turner from Harry Potter. He purchased it early in the year and hid it. We had to schedule a major heart surgery for him on my birthday that year, and the afternoon before we left for the hospital, he was running around like a madman. I asked him why, and he wouldn't tell me. I asked if I could help, and he said no. Finally, I heard an “aha!" from the basement, and he came trotting up the stairs (we were both able to trot up the stairs at that point), already wrapped present in tow. “Your birthday present. In case I die." (We were always very pragmatic about the fact that either of us could die at any time.) He asked me to get myself a salted caramel cake from Robin Chocolates and bring my present the morning of the surgery. He had been blabbing to all the nurses about my present the entire time he had been in the hospital and wanted to show it to them before the surgery. You know. In case he died. I opened it to find the Time Turner—a device that Hermione used to go back in time—and he said, “If I had a real Time Turner and could go back in time, I wouldn't change a thing. Happy birthday.")
And years and years of lunches, and trips to the Botanic Gardens and the Zoo and Estes Park, and chocolates (they were never part of the presents—always just an extra thing).
We didn't have parties, although we always celebrated with our families. He didn't get me elaborate presents or try to surprise me with some big thing. It was just like every other day: He was there, making me feel loved.
In all those years, I found one single picture with him in it.
He was always my best birthday present.
No comments:
Post a Comment