Happy Birthday

Well, one thing I have learned from blogging is reread your work prior to posting.  My father was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer; there is not, of course, a stage VI.  

Yesterday would've have been Bio-Dad's 60th birthday.  I nearly forgot his birthday last year.  Our relationship was tethered by holidays and birthdays.  Those days aside, we rarely had any communication.  The curious thing is that I always put twice as much thought into his gift than for those whom I truly loved.  I didn't necessarily spend extravagantly on him, but I did agonize over the choice.  Oddly, I usually delivered well.  Last year though I realized within a day or two that his birthday was upon me and I stalled.  My life was rather tumultuous at the time and I became aware a month later that I still had not acknowledged Sandy's birthday.  Rather thoughtlessly, I ordered him steaks from Omaha, not realizing that he was having difficulty eating.  Actually, now that I think about it, Father's Day was the occasion I forgot.  His birthday I did indeed send a thoughtful gift though that too was belated.  I can't remember the title or the author now but I do recall that he was impressed with the selection.  I always felt both thrilled and annoyed that he enjoyed my gifts.  Why was he so surprised that I could give so generously?

When I was in high school he began buying me gifts from Tiffany's.  Initially I was delighted to be presented with that distinctive blue box.  However, each gift more readily revealed he had no idea who I was.  His selections seemed odd, like gifts he had bought for someone else, someone older, perhaps a girlfriend who had moved on.  Big seashell earrings.  Large graduated silver beads.  I let my mother borrow them.  I nestled them in their flannel bags and packed them into the back of my lingerie drawer.  

This year, as with the others since my stepmother came into our lives, I received a nice sweater which she had bought.  However, Sandy kept leaving me messages.  He seemed so desperate to reach me.  Each voicemail seemed more urgent than the last.  A week after my birthday, Ifinally  picked up the phone and his relief was palpable.  He NEEDED to wish me well.  It seemed so odd.  He sounded beaten.  Then he shocked me.  The Major General was tired.  He told me how sorry he was that my Gran had to go through the same hell he had endured.  I wanted to care.  I wanted to feel something deeper than curiosity.  Even now, I'm still not sure what I felt that night.  I told him he had fought the good fight.  He was in the ICU less than a week later.