On Birthdays

Today is my sister’s 60th birthday. She was born 5 weeks early on December 17th, 1961. I wasn’t even 2 years old yet, so all I have are memories of the stories, not real memories of her birth. She stayed in the hospital longer than my mother did. When she came home, they wrapped her in a red blanket, and put a card on her that said “Merry Christmas, Mommy!”

She was my first friend, my partner-in-crime. Together we learned all the things that sisters do: how to argue. how to fight. how to laugh, and how to be best friends.

She grew into a troubled woman, but despite the turmoil of her emotional life, she was always a loving sister and friend to me, and a wonderful mother to her children. I miss her every day. Of course today, I miss her more.

She died on my 42nd birthday — February 25, 2002. We had shared dinner the night before, and looking back, I could see her fading. It was as if she was becoming translucent — as if her colors were already moving to that other place — wherever that other place is.

As my 43rd birthday approached, I dreaded it. Not because I would turn 43, but because that was the day Donna died. How can you not mark that anniversary? How can the day not change?. I decided I wouldn’t have a birthday anymore. Aging didn’t bother me, but I could not imagine celebrating with cake and candles and parties and presents on the day that my sister, who had traveled life with me for 40 years, died.

That’s when my Dad stepped in. “You can share my birthday,” he said.

Dad was wise enough to know that birthdays are important enough to celebrate — and in our standard family canon, any part of a year is a whole year. So it was justified, and for that year, at least, my birthday was officially moved from February 25th to December 12th, and 2 months and 13 days before my actual birthday, I turned 43.

That’s what’s special about my family — we can move birthdays if we want to.

Life and death go on. On December 28, 2004, 16 days after his 75th and my 44th birthday, my father’s colors faded on into that other place, too. I know there was a grand, and colorful reunion, but it was a hard year for us.

The next year, on December 12, as I mourned the fact that my Dad wasn’t here for me to share another birthday with, my mother called me: “By the way — Happy Birthday”.

That’s another thing that makes my family special. We remember when birthdays get moved.