Happy Birthday Mama
“Day 1. Today marks the beginning of another journey around the sun.”
Sounds familiar, right? That’s because it is precisely how I started my blog 365 days ago, on December 17, 2018. Only, last year when I wrote it, I was still so full of hope. Today I am feeling a lot of things, but hopeful is not one of them.
Because today is your birthday, your 60th, in fact. It’s a special day that should have been filled with flowers and balloons and cheesecake and champagne. It should have been spent on the beach in Grand Cayman, with the whole family together celebrating you on your self-proclaimed DAY OF TERRI! It was all that you wanted.
But today was anything but the 60th birthday you envisioned. Today was a day full of heartache and tears, of memories of what used to be and painful longing for what should have been. Today was spent alternating between Xanax induced naps and emotional breakdowns as I looked through the hundreds of pictures of you I stole from home. It was spent writing out your birthday card that will sit in a box, unread, and answering texts from everyone else who is missing you as much as I am. It was a day consumed by anxiety and paranoia, nervous that my boss is annoyed that I called in sick and worrying about dad and how is he coping, but feeling too exhausted to call him. So, I guess you can say that it still was a DAY OF TERRI – because you were on all our minds. It just wasn’t in a way that we wanted or ever imagined it to be.
I used to love birthdays. That’s something I am pretty sure I got from you. I didn’t just love my own birthday, but the birthdays of friends, family, and coworkers too. I mean, it’s the one day of the year that is 100% about you and it should be celebrated as such. I loved the idea of honoring the people that mean the most to me, of spoiling them rotten and making sure they feel as special as they are. But underneath the gifts and the parties and the cake, birthdays always reminded me of one fundamental belief... our lives are worth celebrating.
But there is no right way to celebrate your life now that you’re gone. I didn’t plan anything for you today knowing that it wouldn’t feel right and that I would probably change my mind a million times. Nothing I could have done would have been enough, nothing feels worthy of you and the life that you lived. I woke up at 2:30 a.m. with a heavy heart and a tear-soaked pillow and just knew that I needed today… I needed to be alone and shut out the world and just process my grief and think about you. So that’s exactly what I did.
My heart feels so heavy as we all struggle through another “first”. Your absence is magnified as we fail to come to grips with the fact that we never imagined your 59th birthday would actually be your “last”. I put that in quotations because, no matter how long you are gone from this earth, we will never stop celebrating you – your amazing spirit, strength, and heart. I promise you that.
Since I started this blog the same way that I did last year, it’s only fitting that I end it in the same fashion as well. The words, though painful to read again, still hold so true.
“So today, as we celebrate you and everything that makes you so amazing, I hope you remember just how many people are, in fact, celebrating your life. You’re a warrior, and we will continue to love you, pray for you, drink with you, laugh with you, cry with you and cheer for you every single day.”
Happy birthday my dear, sweet momma. I miss you with every ounce of my being.
Salud