The Birthday Party Goes On

Today is Susanna’s birthday, six years since I gave birth to her. It has also become “Susanna’s Day of Kindness”, with people doing amazing things because they know about her. I am not ready to write about that today. There are intense happenings inside of me which have not crystalized into words yet. I will pay attention to them as they dance in the vapors. Also, I went for a walk around Marine Park, in search of something internal, and I believe I have frozen myself.
Today will be the day I will post a page from my book in the making. Please read it and handle it gently, it is a piece of my soul.
Sunshine missed her last birthday pretty much, her fifth. She woke up with a fever and stayed home with Papi. Every time I called to check on her she had not awaken. Strep throat, improved after an antibiotic but scary nonetheless. A discussion of “worst case scenario” and when to go to the emergency room with the doctor was typically covered, a scenario which did not occur. Not well enough to open her gifts. Sophia the First (who could speak to animals through her amulet), mermaid boots with the tail forming a tab in the back, mermaid towel with a face on the hood, a small tent to play in. Rainbow cake, exploding confetti rockets. All to be moved to the next day, January fourteenth. The next morning she slowly came back having healed. Beautiful, the body heals and brings the child back to enjoy the treasures. Beautiful, every day to be a mother to Sunshine and Brother. I sometimes wonder if she could not bear it, to be awake for a birthday which maybe her soul knew was the last. Or more likely she did not want me to bear it. Not having her here again so I can plan the details and the frosting and the goody bags, buy the party shoes and dress and follow the theme she wants and craft it myself, for my little girl and all she is to me. Sunshine was too sweet to let there be a last January thirteenth, so there will never be one.
There actually is one, and it is different than I ever wanted to imagine. The party will go on, Susanna, not without you but because we know you are here.