October Is A Month of Birthdays

October is a month of birthdays. There are two poets I know who share an October birthday. There's my very good friend and her wife (also a good friend) and their October birthdays. A childhood friend who's birthdate I never forgot. A writer who I greatly admire. Then, there's Emily's birthday. Followed by my birthday. The day after my birthday is Emily's mother's birthday. And the day after that is the day Emily's mother died.

Grief is not something I ever expected to accommodate in a relationship, but grief lives here. On our first date, Emily alluded to taking a personal day in late October to go to the beach and reflect. Someone's dead, I thought, immediately curious as to why someone would go to the beach in the autumn. Even the practice of reflecting annually upon someone's death was baldly new to me. I was raised to not talk about death, to keep condolences short and perfunctory. The most we could muster in my family was "Death is weird," which is what I said to my mother when nearly everyone in our family had cancer. A great uncle, a great aunt, a close friend, my grandfather. But not a parent. There isn't a metaphor for losing a parent. Losing a parent can only be compared to losing a parent.

Emily is thoughtful, sensitive, and so beautiful in her attention to her grief. She has something she calls grief math, which is the constant equation of how many years between her mother's death and now, and how many year's between her age and the age her mother was when she died. She left behind journals, including journals she kept knowing her children would read them. After a calendar year of dating, Emily and I approached October together for the first time. For her birthday, I made her a mix tape and wrapped presents. We saw a Broadway play and went out to celebrate. Three weeks later we were doing it all again for my birthday. We had plans to meet for an early dinner at my favorite restaurant before seeing a play. Emily was ten minutes late, then thirty minutes late. It's my birthday, I kept thinking, petulant and singular. She apologized, and apologized again for not bringing flowers like she wanted to. And not having my presents wrapped, like she wanted to, even though she'd had the day off. I was about to ruin our dinner with a storm of irritation when she admitted that she was late because she'd been reading her mother's journals. I remember my self-pity deflating, while also realizing that I'd always share this week with her mother.

At my grandfather's funeral, we sung the St. Francis prayer as we walked to the burial, a prayer which concludes with a petition to comfort than to be comforted, to understand than to be understood, and to love than to be loved. I've struggled to find the grace that can show which one is necessary at any given time. Here was a moment of love, not to be loved. I slid my hand across the table to take her's and asked her about the journals.
*
My birthday was not meant to be my birthday. I was due in late November and arrived in October to a marriage thick with love and taut with alcoholism. My father was at his brother's wedding in Texas the day my mother went to the hospital for her check up and was told that she had to have an emergency c-section. The doctor plainly said that there was a chance that I would not survive, and there was a chance that my mother would not survive. I lived for four weeks inside the warm plastic of an incubator. My mother took a commuter train every day to hold me, carrying her pumped breast milk in a Miss Piggy gift bag. My father would meet her there once he was done with work, his dirty construction clothes left in his pick up truck. At one point there was a staph infection and all the babies had spinal taps. The baby in the incubator next to mine died.

Every October I love my birthday. I throw a party where I make waffles for as many friends as my small apartment can hold. The love from having so many people in my home is what carries me through the darkening winter months. Which is important, because often following my birthday, a pall of depression settles. It's as if my body is remembering all the survival of those first weeks in the world. The high joy of celebration and love careens into unshakeable melancholy. I feel selfish even admitting this, because really, who gets depressed because they were born? When I was a kid I would sometimes tantrum at my birthday parties. I thought the song "It's My Party And I'll Cry If I Want To" was written for me. But having the full attention of all my family and friends, adorned in paper hats, with crepe paper strung around the living room, filled me with anxiety until I emotionally capsized. A birthday is a birthday but it can also be an anniversary of survival, something my little kid self felt deeply but did not have the language to understand.
*
Emily showed me her mother's journals. We read them together, except for the last journal, which Emily is saving. The journals are humble but remarkable, just like Emily's mother. She fought to keep her own last name when she was married in the midwest in the early 70s. She helped to open a bookstore, taught special education, and sang in operas. Emily says her family chose their church by which one had the best choir for her mother. Her handwriting is elegant but animated, a formal cursive with life to its letters. The journal entries are filled with pedestrian observations of her days, as well as spiritual axioms, and a constant seeking of God. All throughout the illness, the treatments, the days, she's asking for guidance, for help bettering herself. Her faith is so bold.

I try to hold Emily and her grief. I've always been a fixer, a care taker, but grief is one of those experiences with no ready salve. I try to be present, accommodating, loving. I've learned that death is acceptable to talk about. She's generous and thoughtful when answering questions (Is Mother's Day hard? Does she think her mother knew she was gay? Does she want to have children so that a piece of her mother can be in the world?) One night as we got ready for bed, I found myself wanting to talk to Emily's mother. While we were falling asleep, in my head, I thanked her for Emily. I told her that her daughter was such a whole and good person, curious, helpful, joyful. I try to honor the parts of Emily that come from her mother: compassion, justice, music, warmth. There is a psalm from her mother's gravestone that Emily had a calligrapher paint for her brother and her father as a gift, as well as one for herself. We hung it above our bed when we moved in together. It's written in blue and very simple: "In the shadow of thy wings I sing for joy."

May we hope for joy this October, and embrace whatever comes.

xo,
c

post scripts:

* Save the date: Wednesday, November 4th, I'll be reading at the HiFi Reading Series at HiFi in the East Village. The incredible Jennifer Baker (host of the Minorities in Publishing podcast) is curating the show. Glendaliz Camacho and Ennis Smith are reading as well, so it's going to be a smash.

* This waffle keyboard iron is a thing! My nerd heart is so happy.

* My good friend Kenda is running a half marathon on October 10th to fundraise for the Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration. You can contribute to her awesome campaign here.

* A few weeks ago I downloaded this free tiny meditation app called 7 Second Meditation. You choose a time of day for it to send you a little meditation prompt, and lemme tell you, every day at 2PM it dings with its tiny wisdom and I always need it. So good.

* This bird effing loves its paper towel.