Birthday

Karen Ray

It was your birthday last week. Well, you'd know that wouldn't you? After seventy of them, you're hardly likely to forget.

Mind you, some people would forget at that age. Dribbling down their fronts, wondering who's shoving baby food down their throats. If I was inclined to look on the bright side, I'd be grateful we were spared that.

Do you remember last year? The seaside trip was booked as always - childhood holidays living on through your grandsons. I used to think everyone went to St Andrews in August. We always went to the Castle Beach for your birthday, have a picnic. Now we have barbecues and call it Grandma's beach. It's funny how life goes on. Part of you wants to keep it as it was, but you can't.

We decided last year that Dad would go with the rest of the family and I would spend the week with you. I wanted you to myself; this was to be our time. Hauling memories from you.

We never asked you what you wanted. We decided. You complied. What was the point? You were losing bigger battles than the right to have an opinion. I hope that you would have chosen to spend your birthday with me.

I spent hours looking for the right present. Scouring the shops, touching everything. I don't know why, but I kept picking things up and holding them, trying to feel something through them. Then the bloody tears would start and I'd go home and pretend I'd spent the day at work.

We talked about September. Not even hoping that you would be there. I hated it when magazines told stories of miraculous recoveries - people on their deathbeds struggling to their daughter's wedding. Neighbours telling me not to let you give in, Aileen praying that we would be singled out for that miracle. As if.

I wonder if you do know it's your birthday. I wonder if you know anything. The magazines carry different stories now - about spiritualists, hairdressers who talk to the dead on their day off. I almost went to a spiritualist service, but got lost and spent the whole evening try to find my way home again. I was too embarrassed to tell anyone, but I would have told you.

You died on American Independence Day, a week before your birthday. Only, no-one used the word 'died'. Dad said 'we've lost Carol' as if the Hospice had put you in a bed and then forgotten where it was. He wasn't with you when you died. I've never asked him why not. Maybe I am scared of what his answer might be.

I was too far away to get there on time, but realise that you were saying goodbye to me the last time I saw you. You asked me what was happening to your skin and I never knew the answer. I know now. Your skin was changing because you were dying. Your body was gradually shutting down. All those near-death experiences, like the light at the end of the tunnel, they all have a scientific explanation. Your hearing would have been the last thing to go. After you lose your eyesight, even after you stop breathing, you can still hear.

I wonder if the nurses were there, if they made sure the last words you heard were good ones, or if they had moved on from your dying and began to talk about the corpse and what they were going to do next. Maybe they were talking about Coronation Street, that would have made you smile if your facial muscles still worked. You told me once that I was born during Corrie and that the midwife kept running through for reports on what was happening.

So now another birthday has come around. Twelve months and seven days since you left me. Twelve months and seven days for everyone else to forget. Twelve months and seven days for Dad to replace you with someone else. Someone you would have hated on the spot and someone I try so hard to like for his sake. You can find another lover, another wife, but you will only ever have one mum.

Today, I am going to go through your jewellery box. I remember where some of them came from, pearls you bought in Spain on holiday, the ring I gave you when I got my first salary, earrings that Aileen & I used to argue over, we both longed to borrow, but that neither of us want to wear now.