“Have I missed anyone’s birthday?” Mom asks while on the phone with me. This is one of a handful of topics we cover every time we talk. I assure her for the umpteenth time that she hasn’t, and she won’t. I remind her that my sister Lisa writes all upcoming family birthdays on the whiteboard that my sister Kielynn bought to keep right beside Mom’s chair. I remind her that Lisa helps Mom sign cards and send them off to everyone well in advance. I remind her that she can always call me, at any time of the day or night, if she’s worried about something she might have forgotten. “We got you, Mom,” I say. “Don’t worry about it.”
“But I do worry,” she says. “I don’t want my grandkids to think I forgot them.”
“They don’t,” I promise. “Never-ever.”
I know the dates are lost to her now; I know she no longer even associates March with Evan, June with Kostyn. But this time, something else occurs to me: “Hey, when’s my birthday?” I challenge, my voice intentionally jovial. I don’t have any idea whether she remembers it or not, but it’s suddenly important for me to know.
She hesitates. “It’s … it’s past,” she says with a giggle, knowing she’s cheating—we’d talked a minute ago about how I’d turned 50 this year.
“Ah, yes, very good,” I mock-congratulate as we both chuckle. “Do you know when it was?”
“It was … it was a good one,” she deflects again. Parts of her are still so sharp.
“It’s in February,” I prompt, hoping this will jog 50 years’ worth of something inside her mind or heart. Doesn’t a mother always remember the day her child was born?
“February … well it has to be … February 50th?” she says haltingly, confused, and I can hear in her voice she knows that doesn’t sound right. We laugh some more.
“Um, the fifth?” she tries again. I feel an ache start to grow in my chest, and quickly push it back down.
“Do you know when Dad’s birthday is?” I ask, switching gears. My father’s birthday is Feb. 6, one week before mine. Maybe they are tied like a hook and bobber inside her mind. Maybe if I reel one in, the other will appear, too.
But she doesn’t take the bait. “When’s your birthday, dear?” she asks Dad, who’s sitting beside her on the attached reclining armchairs in their living room. He has turned down the TV so she can hear me on the phone.
“February,” he answers, his voice gruff.
“February what?” she prods. There is silence for a moment, and I do that thing I’ve been doing more and more lately, which is wonder whose decline is more pronounced.
“The sixth.” He speaks firmly, declaratively, the way he answers the neurologist’s questions at each of his appointments to check the Alzheimer’s progression.
I smile on my end of the line—Advantage: Dad—and I hear her ask him when mine is. “Our middle daughter is wondering if we know when she was born.”
“I wanna say the fifth,” this time his voice is hushed, unsure whether he wants me to hear.
OK, I tell myself. It’s OK.
“It’s the 13th!” I announce with fanfare, as if delivering the answer to a riddle. “My birthday is February 13th.” I wait for the familiar ring of those two words to mean something, but they don’t. It is gone.
“It’s February 13th,” she repeats, telling both of them this brand-new, 50-year-old fact. I hear my dad grunt in acknowledgement.
A few seconds go by, and Mom grows concerned. “Did I remember it then?” She seems scared to ask but needs to know, a feeling I understand.
I think of the card Lisa helped her to sign. “Yep, you absolutely did, Mom. I still have your card!”
“Oh good,” she says, audibly relieved.
After the call I try to shrug off the lost fact. Dates don’t matter, I tell the little girl inside me who loves our birthday. Instead I lock in on the easy laughter between Mom and me, on the vulnerability that’s so present these days. Our middle daughter, she’d said to Dad. I inhale that bit of comfort, feeling the weights and measures that keep me tethered to them recalibrate again.
