Thank you Mom for my Birthday

I felt smothered. JD sang “Happy Birthday” into my ear, while his arms and legs squeezed me tightly.

I lay still after the song was completed. You okay, JD asked. Yes, I said. The ‘yes’ sounded like a ‘yesh’ because my face was half buried in my pillow. What’s wrong, he pleaded, don’t be sad.

I didn’t want to wake up melancholy. I really didn’t. I love my birthday and it’s my most favorite day of the year. But, today I woke up sad.

I tried explaining to JD that a couple days ago my mom and I had a serious conversation. She looked at me with moist eyes and said she felt her time is going to be cut short. Her life may be taken like a thief in the night. I bit my lip and held in my tears. I masked them with a broken smile and insisted she was mistaken. No, I said, God promised us you’d be okay.

Later that night, I sat with JD in our kitchen nook and cried. I need a mom because I’m still a kid.

However, waking up this morning, I realized that as every year of my life passes, I lose the right to call my self a child. I’ve always said I’m too young to be without a mother, but today marks another year of adulthood. Somehow, I feel that losing a mother as a child is harder than losing a mother as an adult. I could be wrong, but it’s how I feel. Sometimes I think it’s part of the natural order of things for parents to pass when a person is an adult. This is why I rage against adulthood.

JD squeezed me even tighter and said my mom would be fine. Today, he said, is not going to be marred by fear. We are going to celebrate life today, both mine and my mother’s. Because, without her, there is no me.

This seems to resonate in my mind more clearly as the years pass.

Thank you, Mom, for giving me life. I love you.