So here’s a question for you, mom – what’s it going to be like tomorrow to wake up and want to call you first thing to wish you a happy birthday and ask what special plans you have with dad and tell you I love you and then, perhaps after that morning moment when I question what’s real or a dream, realize I can’t call you? That I can’t talk to you, just c’mon – TALK to you – hear you laugh, hear you happy, hear you alive? In my head you will always be associated with April 24th. I can see past my grief enough to know it’ll be a day each year that won’t be so sad. It’ll be a day that might even be happy with fond memories and gratitude. But tonight I am dreading tomorrow. You know when I miss you the most, mom? When my kids make me laugh, because they’d make you laugh, too. That they’re growing and changing and reaching milestones and you’re not here to share that with. I miss you when I visit Dad at the house, the quiet quiet house, and I have to hunt around for conditioner and pull brown leaves off the plants. (He’s trying mom, he really is, but no one can match your green thumb.) I miss you when I read a good book and want to tell you about it. I miss you when it rains. I miss you when a good friend of mine that you loved, too, has good news to share. I miss you when there’s drama at Eli’s preschool that is ridiculous and overblown and all I want to do is tell you the story because I know you’d see things the way I do. I miss you when I discover a new brand of dark chocolate. I miss you when I walk home from lunch and want to call you on my cell phone and hear news of your friends and your take on things happening in the world. I miss you sometimes for no apparent reason. It’s like there’s a little hole in me now that I’ve learned to live with but where the wind blows through on occasion to remind me it’s there. I know certain people who hate birthdays. They see them as reminders of how much closer they’re getting to old age. But you never saw them that way, did you? You were one to make a big deal about birthdays, to make sure the birthday person felt special. At least you always made me feel special. I mean, you made me feel special all the time, but especially on my birthday. It’s nice to think about birthdays as a celebration of one’s birth, of one’s entry into life on Earth, I suppose. Perhaps that’s how I’ll make it through tomorrow. I’ll try to remember how lucky I was that you were born, that you gave birth to me, that our lives were intertwined. Birth Day. Birth Day. Happy birthday, mom.