March 11, 2002 I am amazed at how selfish and sad I feel at the same time. I'm sad that some stupid religious fanatic had to ruin my birthday forever. However, I'm more deeply grieved that he's made it so a bunch of people will never celebrate birthdays again. I find tears rolling on my lids at the slightest sentiment about the WTC/pentagon plane bombings. Prayers find my voice and whisper into that void where two towers were. I found myself oddly touched by the kid who painted his Pinewood Derby car at cubscouts like a flag. Russell painted his flat black and put a Python decal on it from the boyscout store. They didn't really race like these derbies usually go. They raced, but every kid got a ribbon and a few kids got extra stuff for fancy schmancy cars. And then I came home to the news about nine eleven memorials. About 15 years ago, I had my astrological chart done and it said I had stars that indicated I had the opportunity to have fame. About 8 years ago, I had my numbers and a tarot reading and the woman absolutely blanched when she saw my numbers. I hadn't told her a thing. And she blurted out,"You've had a really rough life up til now, haven't you?" I smiled and said,"Yeah, I certainly have." My friend looked at me protectively. The numerology reader told me I'd be hot stuff later in life -- essentially that the karmic payback of enduring all that crap was that things would get better. But she looked positively shaken by what she'd seen in the cards. There's no telling what lies beneath, I guess. I'd always thought that my birthday and the fact that it equated to an emergency number seemed karmically ironic. My friend, Sue, said while being pummeled by Hurricane Iniki in Hawaii, "Only you would have a natural disaster on your birthday." And birthdays are such odd things to people -- complete with odd memories and importance. I remember my 6th birthday -- I had a party with a bunch of girls. I have pictures somewhere and it involves 70's clothing and hairstyles. And no, I didn't scan that bit of blackmail material. I remember as a child, pitying my hairdresser's daugher, whose birthday was on February 29th. I remember the advent and novelty of bundt cake. Now, I'm faced with the remembrance of all those people, stories that include disassociated body parts, loved ones, my dad crying on the phone as he tearfully reiterated how much he loved me and my kids and husband, and bravery beyond imagining amongst strangers. I just find that every time I think of my birthday, that I am filled with sadness and resonations. I'm sure that I will have to change how I celebrate my birthday. I figure I'm heading onto 40, which is frankly a birthday I want to ignore, so I've decided I'm going to remain 38 forever. I like presents, but I couldn't begin to enjoy them with all those dead bodies around. I realize 40 is supposed to be a black birthday, but this wound is so much like my diabetic skin, healing so slowly. Maybe it's the bombing of Afghanistan and the threat of bombing other countries that reopens the wounds. I think more for me it's the internal war between a need for patriotic revenge and my liberal candy ass that loathes things like war and the death penalty. Maybe it's the mother in me, that can hear crying children calling on their parents' angels, and finds it utterly unnerving. When I was 10, I had a beautiful silver angora kitten with blue eyes named Smokey. I adored Smokey and he often curled around my neck or in my sweatshirt hood purring loudly as I went through the fields picking wintergreen berries. One day, as I walked home from the bus stop I saw a small kitten crossing the yard and realized with a start, that it wasn't Smokey. My parents hung back in the doorway watching me pick up the kitten. Confused, I asked,"Smokey?" My mom explained in a torrent how a neighbor had inadvertently hit the kitten on the hairpin turn in front of our house. This kitten was from the same litter, she tried to reassure me. I cried for Smokey. At the same time, my hands knew the special scritches and strokes that a small kitten likes and I went through the motions for a while, until I got to know this new animal. My birthday is now like that -- going through the motions with a lump in my heart, which means this half birthday is half-hearted, perhaps. This is not only a new animal, but an entirely new species of survivor guilt. |