I'll Cry if I Want To

Tomorrow is my birthday. I have birthday cards in my mail box, facebook messages galore, kind and generous emails. And I ignore them all.


Yes, as of tomorrow I am half way to seventy. And yes, as of tomorrow, I am closer to forty than thirty, but its for none of those reasons I will cry.


Tomorrow a precious little girl, no longer the baby I remember or held, turns three. A child who once called me Mama. A child to whom I am now a stranger.


Is it a cruel twist of fate or an act of God that I share a birthday with a child I loved with all my heart, shared my home and family with and then lost so absolutely when I had never even fathomed the completeness of her absence as a remote possibility? I don't know. I have a hard time wrapping my head around a God that would additionally torture me like this.

Three years ago on my birthday I received a phone call that a young, young mom I knew had a brand new baby girl. I remember I offerred a donation of baby goods to the young mom's mother. 6 weeks later that little baby would spend her first night in our home.




Then two years ago, on a cold January day, I celebrated my birthday by completely NOT celebrating MY birthday. A precious child I adored was turning one. I threw her two birthday parties that day because her grandmother and her mother couldn't be in the same room at the same time, and I wanted them both to share her special day with her. And her to share her day with them. And me to share my day with her.

All of us together, those that loved her most in the world celebrating the miracle that was this beautiful child that had brought us together, and would, ultimately, tear us apart. She and I the losers in a battle of possession.


Less than two weeks later I dressed her in a pink snow suit, over top of yellow ducky pajamas, I kissed her good-bye and she was gone from my life. Our lives. Forever. Unalterably. Gone. I didn't believe it then, or even realize it. But a week later I sent her clothes and her toys to her. I sobbed as her crib was taken down. It was a nightmare beyond my biggest imagination.

I was told she cried for me for weeks. Mama. Mama. Mama. And I cry still. Baby. Baby. Baby.


I've asked for answers from God, from friends, from family. Noone can tell me when it won't hurt quite so bad. Noone can tell me when I can face the idea of "celebrating" a day that will forever be tied to that one, joint birthday spent together. I remember how it felt when my heart wasn't broken in this way, I just can't fathom being that woman again. That mother again.


And so I forget my birthday and I choose to wish the baby girl I loved with my entire heart and soul, wherever she may be, whoever she may be with, a very happy birthday.


Happy Birthday Jazzy. She who was your "Mama" loves you very, very much.