Anniversaries

 With a new year comes a new cycle of anniversaries to be celebrated. 

Some wonderous, like birthdays, special moments, and new traditions that are coming around for the second time. And then there are the anniversaries you dread. Coming up on the 17th is my mom's birthday. Last year we celebrated with her and we knew that it would be her last birthday. We went all out to give her a massive party with all of her favourite things. Her favourite music, the cake she wanted. It was a celebration but also a last hurrah. There were moments when the air was sucked out of the room and Kala and I ran to the bathroom to hide our crying. Mom didn't abide us crying over her and we were supposed to be strong for her, but to be honest there were cracks in the foundation. A year later (I can't believe I am saying it) and she is not here to celebrate her birthday. A significant day that will pass but still holds reverence for her family. It will always be the day that she came into the world and then, of course, we will be dealing with a new anniversary... the day she left it. Saying she is gone still leaves an awful taste in my mouth. It is wrong and foreign. It is not how things should be, and yet it is the most natural thing in the world. Death is not foreign, we have just made it out to be this thing to fight. To rally and deny when in fact it is the natural order. We live, and we expire. It is the comma in that sentence that means the most. It is everything between the beginning in the end that makes the story. From cover to cover, and no one can dismiss there is an ending. But even with all of this, it sucks to know that the story is complete and the anniversary of its completion is a hard thing to stomach. I have heard all the cliches including, grief is love enduring and yes our love for her was deep and complex, but grief is something much more simple and it emerges without warning. I have been feeling dread coming up to her birthday and even to my own. I used to get so excited for those days and now the feelings are much more fragile and taciturn. It is the darker and more wary version. I feel like that is a good descriptor for me - the darker, warier version. 

Admittedly I am not sad about when my mother died, I was actually quite proud of her in a lot of ways as she stuck it to the man one last time and made the benefits company pay out dad (she died within 2 days of them shutting down her benefits) and it was that final middle finger that made me laugh... it was so her. But the anniversary of it makes me remember clear as day, the goodbye. The images burned in memory. The love, the challenges, the beauty, and the horrid ache. All of it, to be revisited and remembered. But on the other end of it, we were there to experience it with her. It was a passage, the final rite of passage that she would go through. It was important and as luck would have it we were all there surrounding her. We held her and then we let her go. She went knowing she was loved beyond measure. That while she wasn't lucky in health, she was lucky with love and family. 


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