This year I felt...let's say...less than celebratory. All I could think about was my brother - how he never forgot my mom on Mother's day - even usually giving or making me a card. With my brother, you wished for a homemade card, since they were the best. He was so funny and drew the cleverest pictures. I couldn't bear the thought of him not getting my mom a card this year, so I picked one out for him. My dad thought that was weird, but my mom loved it.

Well, we decided to have my birthday cake on Mother's Day, since my actual birthday was on a Monday. On Sunday, I sat on my parents' porch and had a "moment." Toward the end of his life, my parents' porch was on some days, highlights of my brother's day. He'd be watching TV and I would say, "Are you ready?" and his face would usually light up, or alternately, he'd roll his eyes at my ridiculous question. Of COURSE he was ready to go outside. I would help him out there and into a patio chair for some fresh air and an American Spirit ciggie. Sometimes my older son would join us. Sometimes we'd play the stereo loud enough to hear on the porch. He wasn't very talkative at that stage and I'd spend the time outside rambling on and on, hoping that I was entertaining him. He'd either laugh at me (I'd told a good joke), or roll his eyes at me (I'd told a bad joke), or raise his eyebrows (he doubted my story).

On Sunday as I was sitting on the porch, I could practically see him sitting there under the sun umbrella. I could see him stubbornly trying to get his cigarette butt into the narrow opening of an old Gatorade jug, hands shaking but making it into the hole nonetheless. The jug is still there, his butts still in it. I cried like a baby.

I shouldn't have let myself get so melancholy at my birthday cake, since the kids were there, but I couldn't help it. I was born on the fourteenth, the same day that my brother died. I don't know if I'll ever want to celebrate my birthday again, so for the time being, I'm 39 and holding.

mine was on the 7th.

Birthday kisses and huggs!!!! tears cuz I am not here to celebrate with you...

I like this line on the Laurel Brauns CD.
"Where these holes in your heart, you can wear them like stars. Waiting for night."

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