The Greatest Gift of All

 Christmas and birthdays are my favorite times of the year. I literally plan for months to execute a 3-4 week celebration of life, culminating with friends and family gathered on my actual birthday (Oct. 22). My birthday gives me a reason to fellowship with friends and family that I don't get to see on a regular basis. However, as you can imagine, my 2016 birthday was a bit different.

The weeks prior to my birthday were spent taking care of family business, while balancing school, family and jobs. The days’ prior were spent mostly in tears as I dreaded this “first” birthday without my mother. I missed her calls asking “So what did you and your friends do to celebrate today” ; I missed hearing Mom laughing at how serious I took my celebration; I missed Mommy calling to clarify when I'd be coming home; I missed Mommy more than ever.
 
I remember telling Dad, “You know next week is my birthday,” to which he smiled and nodded his head. It was his solemn reply that reminded me that this birthday would be different. For once, this type-A planner didn’t plan a thing. I didn’t plan extravagant dinners, I didn’t have all my friends fly in, I didn’t rent or reserve anything. Everything was very last minute and more so  "I'm hungry, we should probably get food tonight" (I thank God for friends who didn't need much of a heads up and had a few things up their sleeve *see picture above at a restaurant in Atlanta*).
 
The face of my phone shattered the night before my birthday (I may have dropped it several times before that week, thus the  drop walking into the restaurant was the final straw), but I still woke up to back to back dings notifying me of birthday wishes on my phone. Unfortunately, instead of garnering the usual excitement, the noise made me incredibly anxious. You see, the last time I'd received back to back dings on my phone was the morning after Mom died. And just like that, I [mentally] went from being in my apartment back to the hospital room with Mom's lifeless body. Needless to say, my shattered phone immediately went on silent for the rest of the day.

Even after fixing my phone, I answered very few  calls on my birthday. In all honesty, I wasn't ready to hear the “I know this one is gonna be hard” or the awkward silence after “I know this is the first without…” I felt the gap and there was something about the thought of hearing loved ones on the other end of that dial that made me incredibly sad. Perhaps it was that their vocal presence maximized Mom's silence; perhaps talking on the phone that day made things too real. For no matter how many calls or text I received, I knew the most important one would be missing; for the first time in forever, “Mommy” would not pop up on my phone, there would be no special flower or Edible Arrangement delivery; there would be no “cake in a jar”…the only “gift” from Mom on my first birthday without her was life itself... but perhaps the gift of life was the greatest gift of all.