A World Without Annie: January 17th

Her Birthday.

A birthday card Annie once salvaged—and saved—from a flooded basement.

Annie loved her birthday and chose to believe that it was her birthday, rather than Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, that provided the annual 3-day weekend. When she found out she shared the day with none other than Michelle Obama and Betty White, she felt she had found her people. She loved her birthday in LA, in New York City, in Vermont and in Connecticut—and all the different ways she could celebrate: brunch outdoors in 80 degree sunshine, walking around Chelsea on an unseasonably warm winter day, snowshoeing on a mountain, and on a snowy afternoon with Luca. Annie didn’t just love her birthday, though—I think she just loved birthdays. She celebrated everyone’s with delight and a keen sense of which exact, perfect gift to bestow on the birthday girl or boy.

When my Mom died on January 15, 2017, I will always believe she made sure she left this world before Annie’s birthday—she would have never wanted Annie to bear something as heartbreaking as sharing her birthday with the day her beloved grandma died.

This is the first time in 44 years that Annie is not here to celebrate her day. And I have had no idea how to deal with it. What do I do? How do I do it? I’ve said things to myself like, “that day will be so hard” or “this coming week will be brutal.” As if every other day of the year isn’t equally awful without her.

The last few months of holidays have also included events like moving Tony and Luca out of the apartment they moved into two years ago. That cozy, Main Street apartment’s intention was to ease the pressure of being homeowners while Annie was in chemo and treatment. It was thought of as temporary and Annie continued to subscribe to her real estate agent’s new-home alerts. But then, it was time to actually move out of the apartment and Tony and Luca found a new home.

During the move there was the task of what to do with Annie’s things. The new home contains parts of Annie in the art and decorations and photos she framed and hung around their previous homes. Her eye for comfy linens and home goods moved them into new cupboards and closets and the new kitchen still has her touch for culinary ease and innovation. But she doesn’t have a closet anymore and won’t need a dresser. She doesn’t need a shelf in the bathroom.

So, we went through everything. I shared some special items of clothing with friends and family and we donated most of her clothes to a women’s shelter. (She would love that.) She has boxes and boxes of her mementos and memories labeled and organized (college, having a baby, getting married, work, writing, etc.) that we have stacked on a table to go through…sometime. This task required me to look at a life that had a beginning and an end. And as difficult and grueling as it was, I also felt great pride in the woman who was my daughter.

And what struck me was the hope that she knew that—how proud I was of her. How much I loved her. I may have shared this before, but at one point, we began signing off our texts—and even our in-person good-byes—by saying, “I love you so much.” It was so few words to convey just how much I wanted to take care of her, to keep her safe, but they were the ones we had, so we stuck with it.

During the sorting and organizing, Tony found the birthday card pictured above. I had sent it to Annie on her 21^st birthday, which she was celebrating at college in Burlington. (We eventually met up with her in Boston to celebrate again.) When I read it, I felt a small warmth in my heart that I did tell her how much I loved her and how much she meant to me. She knew.

I think, in part, that’s why I’m sharing so much of what this journey is like for me. I can literally speak to the loss of friends, a sister, a mother and a father and now a daughter. And no message has been stronger through it all than how important it is to love each other. And say so.

As I anticipated her day—the day she loved so much, loving only Luca’s birthday more—I felt a weird sense of calm, but also a feeling that I needed to move slowly, not take on too much. Say no often. I kept feeling like, “this feeling of dread will be over once her birthday passes.” But there’s no “over” in grief. Grief is without measure. Not in time, not in capacity, not qualitative, not quantitative.

Like love.

The birthday girl at 3.