Birthdays and Anniversaries

Not all birthdays and anniversaries are greeted with joy and with celebration. Some events remind us that we are aging and many of us none to gracefully. Cakes, candles, and ice cream have long ago lost their appeal. Who likes the struggle just to blow out the bonfire of candles that top the cake in one breath, not me? Gifts, unless it’s a smaller house or a maid to keep clean the large home I now have are always appreciated, but what else is there that I need?

I’ve long ago surpassed the Pennsylvania speed limit and am fast approaching the seventy miles per hour speed limits out west. My body is wearing out. I just had wrist surgery to correct the pain and numbness caused by repetitious overuse.

I like to celebrate birthdays for my kids and my grandkids when I am reminded. Even though I bought calendars with their birthdays and anniversaries listed on the correct dates. I put them up and now I can’t find them. They were to be Christmas gifts last year.

There is one anniversary, I don’t have the need or like to be reminded about. It will soon be fourteen years since the passing of my wife, Cindy and eleven years since the passing of my mom, Sybil. Ovarian cancer claimed my wife while Alzheimer’s disease consumed my mother. The coincidence of my mom passing on the very same date three years later is astronomical, but it is something that happened. With my birthday and both of those anniversaries occurring in March, is there any wonder that March is not my favorite month?