CAKE AND FLOWERS ON MOM’S BIRTHDAY

The anniversary of my mother’s death is not the day that derails me.

Granted, there are memories of that crisp, autumn morning I’ll never purge: the astonishing shift in the air when Mom’s heart stopped. The assault of sunshine. The kind attendant in the hospital parking lot, who quietly lifted the gate as I dug and dug for my parking ticket then started babbling through tears that I was so sorry I couldn’t find it but I was here all night and my mom just died and Mom always knew where her ticket was because she worried about things like that.

“You go home now,” the woman said. “Just go home.”

So, yes, I remember that day, but its anniversary has no choke hold on me. That maneuver of memory is reserved for her birthday.

My mother loved birthdays because she cherished surprises. She was so much fun to give a present to, giggling and squealing whenever a bundle of ribbon and bows was plopped on her lap.

Her hoots and hollers made others laugh, and who doesn’t want to do that? Her birthday week was one long parade of friends and family bearing everything from ghastly animal figurines and crocheted toilet paper covers to French perfume.

“It’s exactly what I wanted,” she crowed every single time, shooting a scowl at me whenever my own gaping mouth suggested otherwise. “Ma,” I’d say later, “a guitar-playing pig?”

“You never know when you might need one,” she’d say, turning the plump little guy round and round in her tiny hands.

This Saturday, my mom would have turned sixty-seven. That’s one of my newer traditions, I guess. Every birthday since she died four years ago, I wake up and think, “Mom would have been sixty-three…sixty-four…sixty-five….” I still mark her birthday in my calendar, for no good reason except I can’t bring myself not to. It leads to nothing but sadness, and that would have disappointed my mom. Birthdays, she said, are for celebrating.

A few days before she died, Mom grabbed my hand and told me, yet again, how she wished I’d meet “some nice man.” She hated to see me take on so much alone, and the same independence she counted on sometimes made her worry.

“You’ll know he’s the one when he ignores all your protests and pays for the dinner,” she said, wagging her finger. “But just in case you’re not sure, I’ll let you know.”

I rolled my eyes and said, “Okay, Ma.”

Four years later, I woke up one morning and wondered what she would have thought of the man I agreed to marry, and not just because he bought that first dinner. There was that familiar knot of questions wrapped around no answers and tucked just so, making it impossible for me to draw a deep breath. “Oh, Ma,” I said out loud. I busied myself with the morning’s activities, headed to work.

The first person I ran into that morning was one of my closest friends, who beamed at the sight of me. “I was just thinking how happy your mother would be for you now,” she said, her eyes misting. “I just know she’d love him.”

Breathe, I told myself.

Soon after, I decided Mom was right: Birthdays, including hers, should be joyful. And just because she’s not here anymore doesn’t mean I can’t give her a present. It’s a whopper, too.

On Saturday, I will wake up and remember Mom would have turned sixty-seven. I’ll probably feel that usual pang, but it won’t last, for do I have a surprise for her.

Our home will bustle with the antics and one-liners of grown kids who have far too much fun teasing their parents, the bride and groom. We’ll dart over and around one another as we eat and shower and wriggle into costumes designed to lend credibility. We’ll pile into various cars punctuated with an assortment of dings to drive to the church where family and friends will meet us in a sanctuary brimming with lilies.

We’ll laugh and sing and pray together, maybe cry a little too, and after we say “I do,” one of the pastors is going to haul herself up to the belfry and ring the church bells so even the sparrows know the celebration is on.

I think Mom would have loved that.

In fact, I’m sure she will.