Last Friday would
have been my brother’s sixty-first birthday. I can’t even wrap my head around
that fact. In my mind, he is forever thirty-something. He was fifty-four when
he died, but he was thirty-something to me, even then.
I didn’t remember my
brother’s birthday on Friday. It’s the first time I didn’t remember his
birthday, on his birthday. I was super busy on Friday, kid and puppy sitting
for a friend all day long and then hideous traffic getting back to the Valley
from West Hollywood that made my commute twice as long as it should have been.
Had been planning on driving out to the desert that night, but by the time I
finally made it home, I was too worn out to even pack. And, if that all sounds
like bad excuses for missing my brother’s birthday, it’s because there’s no
excuse for not remembering my brother’s birthday.
I remembered on
Saturday, because Saturday would have been my dad’s eighty-eighth birthday. Or
as my dad would have said, just to get a rise out of my mom, the first day of
his eighty-ninth year. I was finally packed and on my way to the desert, and talking
on the phone with my X when I realized. I was astonished. And devastated. X
tried to make me feel better by telling me it was a good thing, it meant I was moving
on or something like that. Nice try. But, I never want to move that far. I
spent the bulk of the rest of my drive in tears, completely guilt-ridden.
My first stop in the
desert was to pick up The Empress Mr. Chin. We were going to run some errands for
her party the following day. I began unburdening my guilty soul to her the
second she got into the car, when we turned the first corner from her house and
there he was, my brother, in his usual form - a small, brown, adorable bunny.
My heart and guilty soul felt lighter the second I saw him. I stopped the car
and watched him hop across Mr. Chin's neighbor’s yard and into the bushes and realized
I was smiling.
Happy birthday, big
brother, and thank you, for letting me off the hook so quickly, and much too
easily. It was just like you.
Happy Birthday Bobby and Pop-pop!
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