September will be the cruelest month this year, and possibly for years to come. For the second time in my life, I dread what this month brings. It's not only the first year my mother won't be alive for her own birthday on the 22nd (she would have been 68), but my oldest brother and I take our turns facing our first birthdays as orphans.
I will be 33 on Sept. 18th. It's not a particularly "special" birthday, but it's a momentous one in my grief journey. I can't bear the thought of going through the day without a phone call from Mami, who like all mothers, I suppose, made sure to shower me with birthday blessings, tales of my birth, and sweet compliments.
Last year, as it turned out, she was exactly two weeks away from succumbing to her metastatic cancer, but she still mustered the strength necessary to call my cell and leave a surprisingly animated message. I remember leaving the amazing dinner my husband treated me to at CityZen and listening to it, tears streaming steadily down my face. I told my husband that I knew, no matter how much my heart protested, that it was the final time I'd receive Mami's birthday call.
The very next day, I packed up my then-six-month-old baby, kissed my husband and older two children goodbye, and headed to Florida to celebrate Mami's 67th birthday. My brother's entire family was also flying down, so Mami could see all of her children together. It was an emotional weekend. Mami looked emaciated and withdrawn. She could barely keep her eyes open and had to be carried up and down the stairs by my brothers.
But there was joy too. As the American Cancer Society's More Birthdays campaign proclaims, every birthday is a victory. Mami had made it to 67, although we all knew she wasn't going to see 68. We sang happy birthday. She blew out her candles (with help from the grandkids). She gushed about her present, a special photo blanket made up of the faces of her eight grandchildren. We ate takeout from a Colombian restaurant, so she could have her motherland's comfort food again.
Later that night, Mami told me what, looking back, was her "final gift." She said, in Spanish: "It's such a beautiful blanket. I only wish I had more time to enjoy it." I didn't want to hear her acknowledge what had previously gone unspoken, but now, 11 months later, I'm so grateful she made that comment.
Mami was right. She died 10 days later in a Hospice bed, while my sister read quietly by her side.
I face September with the grief only someone who has lost their mother and father can understand. I put her birthday on the family calendar, wishing she could have lived to have another birthday, another victory against that hateful, merciless killer that is cancer.
An original DC Metro Moms post.
Sandie blogs about grief and motherless motherhood at Urban Mama.
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