March 7

This day.

Do you have dates that to everyone else are perfectly normal, but for you, it’s something else entirely. A day that isn’t a holiday. The mail comes. The bank is open. Little Sir had school. I had work. A day without decorations, not even a Hallmark card.

And yet.

This day.

March 7.

It’s Grandma Smith’s birthday today and she’s not here to celebrate anymore. I woke up thinking that I hope they have fruit tart in heaven today because she loved those. One year, we had it as part of the lunch for her birthday. She had another piece after dinner and the rest of it was gone with breakfast. Sounded fine to me- it has fruit on it, after all.

This is the first year in my entire life that I have no birthdays to celebrate in March. One Grandpa’s is March 9 and the other was born on March 10. It’s a strange feeling to have done something for nearly 50 years, a memory that predates memory, and is now done.

If that isn’t enough, this also would have been the 26th anniversary of my first marriage– had it lasted. When we picked the date, it felt extra special that it was also my Grandma’s birthday. It never occurred to me that this date would one day be this empty.

It’s an acidic taste in my mouth to think how naive I was to believe that marriage could survive and that I would always have a Grandma.

So precious little in this world can legitimately attach the word “always” to it.

Of course, the day isn’t truly empty. It’s full of memories. Of the fruit tart. Of my Grandparents teasing each other about being a year closer in age for one day a year. Of the chocolate cake I made for my Grandpa Schroeder one year, but only half of it got delivered because I was only able to catch half from sliding off the seat of the car as I drove over to their house.

It’s full of the party we had last year, not knowing it would be the last year. It’s full of the emotional roller coaster last year when we had the memorial service for Grandma June one day and the birthday party for Grandma Smith the following day.

I’m not sad exactly. This is how life works. It begins. It ends. I get it. I am grateful for 49+ years of grandparents. Wonderful grandparents. Each had long lives. The losses of my Grandparents ended suffering. Each was ready in his or her own way. The divorce also ended suffering of a different sort.

No, sadness isn’t the right word. I don’t know that there is a feeling. Or not a name for the feeling. I am…aware. I’m aware of this day no longer having an earthly presence and yet a presence just the same. I have no doubts that my divorce was necessary, and yet, I’m very aware that my story isn’t one of a lifelong marriage and how puzzling that is to me since it is something I very much wanted and worked so hard to achieve.

March 7. A day brimming with meaning and yet, this year, just another day on the calendar.