It is the first birthday without him here. It's a sad day but also a day that holds so many fond memories. My brother adored birthdays. He would get SO excited about his birthday as a little boy and as a teenager, and the thrill never wore off for him. He planned his birthday months ahead of time. He would find concerts near his birthday, or festivals, or fairs... He would plan the "special thing" he wanted to do for his birthday with an enthusiastic detail I found both unnerving and amusing. I teased him about having birthweek versus birthday. He was such a little kid about birthdays. I never in my wildest imagination, growing up with him, would have dreamed that maybe God made him this way because He knew my brother would only have thirty one of them on earth.

In honor of my brother's love for big-production birthdays, and because he asked my mom to do it, we packed up the clan and headed to Fenway yesterday. We each had a button with my brother's photo on it, our Red Sox hats, t-shirts and other assorted get-ups, and piled into the narrow seating behind home & third. The Sox lost, but I think my brother would have appreciated the humor there. Never give up your faith! I could almost hear him saying it. My mom arranged the message in the following photo through the friends and contacts she made at Fenway while my brother was ill.

My mother wrote the following for her friends on a website for parents dealing with the loss of their children. She's made many friends through the website and I'm glad it allows her to channel some of her grief into creativity - another thing my brother would surely approve of. She let me read it and with her permission I'm printing it here. It brought tears to my eye but also a smile here and there.

Monday, August 20, 2007, is Mike's birthday---our first without him. A person's birthday is such a huge event in their lives; it celebrates their beginning, the arrival of a new spirit into this world, the moment of life's beginning for them. When they are placed in our arms, our happiness is almost indescribable---remember? "Hey world, this is my baby; isn't he/she absolutely the most beautiful baby you've ever seen? Isn't he/she the smartest, the happiest, the sweetest?" We all traveled this road when our child was born. We all reveled in the joy of it. We all were beside ourselves with pride and love and feeling so very blessed--life is wonderful.

Each successive year, when we celebrate the birthday of our sweet child, we are even more amazed. How tall they are getting. How beautiful their eyes are. How cute they are. The things they say are embedded in our minds--they are so smart, so cute, so wonderful. Surely no other child is as smart, cute, or wonderful. Even though we celebrate the milestones-- their first haircut, that first day of school, the first time they ride their bike, we are a little saddened at the same time, because we know their childhood is racing by, and we want to make it last as long as possible. We want them to grow, yes, but at the same time, we want them to stay small, and cute, and wonderful.

But as each birthday is celebrated, we see new things--another inch or three added on; another facet of their personality is coming through; another year of learning is increasing their awareness of the world around them. And we celebrate all of this. We are happy; we sing "Happy Birthday" to them and hug them, and love them, and everyone gets together to show them how much we love them and how much we celebrate their very being. This is how it should be. Loving and growing and being.

But when this sweet, precious, wonderful life we have brought into this world is ended early, what do we do when their birthday arrives? I don't know. I haven't been there yet, but it is closing in on me, fast. And what's left of my heart is imploding and my mind is exploding--with all of the memories, with all of the "Happy Birthday to You" songs that we've sung, and will sing no more; at least not with Mike sitting beside us, making us all laugh with some wry remark, jokingly—but with a touch of seriousness—looking around to make sure everyone there brought him something; after all, it’s his birthday, isn’t it? And no matter our age; we are ALL "children" when it comes to our birthdays, aren't we?

When a parent experiences the loss of their child by an early death, we know that life will never be the same for any of us. No more “normal.” Some day we will reach a "new normal” in our lives, or so I’m told by those who have been on this sad journey a lot longer than I have. A "new normal" that is not what any of us ever dreamed that we would live. And none of us want to be there. We go on, because we have other children and family to love and tend to and to be loved by and tended to. For this we are eternally grateful. But, each day is a new experience. Some are unbearably sad, some just "are," and some, every now and then, are threaded through with a memory here and there that brings a smile to our minds, a warmth to our heart, however slight, however swift, without the tears following, without the wrenching pain that memories sometimes bring. For these days I am so very thankful—how could we get to the next day if we didn't have these types of days now and then to bring us forward in our lives?

This Monday, I pray will be one of these days. I know we will remember Mike with memories of love and happy birthdays; we will remember how he really loved birthdays; how he must have invented the "this is my birthday weekend" if his birthday fell on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. We will remember his quirky sense of humor, his devotion to his kids, his love of movies and music, his love of being with family and friends, his passion for his tattoos, and most importantly, his passion for just "being”; just having the opportunity to be alive, to find happiness in whatever life was handing him at the time. And we will remember how, when he knew that his life was going to end soon, he comforted us, he told us that we were not to be sad about his dying, that we were not to sit around and cry that he was gone. He told us to celebrate our lives, to "Weep Not for the Memory," to LIVE.

So, how can I sit here on his birthday and cry, and yet, how can I not? This person, who showed us all what life is REALLY about, who said "I tend to be the kind of person who doesn't let much affect him; I roll with it and just take what I can out of it that's positive--there's always something--and learn from the negative..." and who, just a couple of months after learning that he had only months left to live, said, "I don't know why everyone is making such a fuss about my dying...everyone dies, I'm just doing it sooner than most. And I'm not afraid to die. I know where I'm going," will forever be alive in our hearts and our memories. But the absence of him from our physical lives brings pain that cannot be written about--there are no words sufficient to describe it, and though this too will be with us on Monday, we will still try to spend as much of the day as we can with sweet memories of all of those 31 years—the good and the bad—that we do have.

I haven't found much that's positive about this much too early end to Mike's life...I can't think of anything this early in our journey without him on this earth that could ever make me think that. And I think that Mike would understand that, at least for now; I just can't. Mike's leaving us early has turned our lives around, and though we try so hard to move ahead with our lives as he so very lovingly and courageously asked us to do, so far we can only take one day at a time, and try to make it to the next one.

We are, as Mike requested, going to Fenway Park on Sunday for his birthday, bringing his boys, as he asked me to, just weeks after his second brain surgery. Right in the middle of Fenway Park, in the middle of a game, he turned to me and said, "Mom, after I'm dead, I want you to keep coming to the games, to keep up this tradition that you and I have started; bring my boys, keep sharing it with them." As my heart plummeted to the ground at his frankness and simple yet profound request, he saw the look in my eyes and the tears spilling over my cheeks; he took my hand, put his arm around my shoulders, and said, "Okay, mom, I understand; but, please, at least promise me that you will be here for my birthday, with my boys—and I will be here, too." So, we will be there: myself, his dad, his sister, his two older boys, his nephews, and his best friend. The rest of us will all be there, wearing on our baseball caps a big button with Mike's picture on it, his smile jumping off of it to the world around us, with the words "Happy Birthday Mike" in a circle around his sweet face, and when we all stand up to sing "Sweet Caroline" in the middle of the 8th inning with some 36,000 other people, we will all know that Mike is "reaching out, touching you, touching me," and we will likely cry, and we will try to laugh, and we will remember...

Happy Birthday, bro. I hope your first in Heaven was your best one yet.

That was nice. Halfway through I began thinking of my own son. I can't imagine what you guys have gone through.

Many hugs and kisses from OZ.... miss you and wish I could be there for you.

I see where you got your gift for beautiful writing...

My heart still breaks for your family, and I am amazed and humbled by the grace you have in dealing with this.

Belated birthday wishes from my clan, Mike.

Best wishes from mine to yours, Bully.

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