PrimeTime
THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2024
JOHNSTON SUN RISE
RHODYBEAT.COM
The Sweet Month of May May has always been a special month. My birthday is in May - at the end and often falls on or near Memorial Day weekend. Trees are budding, perennials are blooming, and birdsong is returning. Hearing the birds singing and chirping again brings me joy and makes me smile. And there’s always a parade or two and the start of the cook-out season to add to May’s appeal. Every month has its blessings and moments of wonder to tuck away into memory. Even January and February have their virtues. Cold, still nights with moonlight shining on snow - sturdy trees reaching up to the stars - stark and bare - like bony fingers - leafless, but alive. It’s always possible to find the good in every month of the year, every season, if we take the time to notice. I entered a new decade - a decade that I used to think was “very But May, besides being my birthday month, was always the lead up to the end old”. My daughters gave me a huge surprise party - a restaurant of the school year and then summer wasn’t far behind. And this anticipatory feelbuffet dinner that was wonderful and fun in every way. There was ing wasn’t confined to my growing up years when my birthday was actually an “vintage” music playing (oldies from the 1960s), and years of family pictures, exciting day when I looked forward to being a year older. I was a public school and all of my relatives from both sides of my extended speech pathologist and May’s approach still made me family, and friends - all ages - from all areas of my life giddy with a sense of the coming of summer freedom - all were there to celebrate with me. as an adult. The getting older part…not so much. All ages - it really is just a number. Friendship and The other annual May event, Mother’s Day, wasn’t love transcend the intervening years - erasing the gap by SUSAN DEAN really a big deal in our family. through the connections that we cherish. We’d acknowledge our mom with hand-made cards I share a May birthday with one of my grandsons. or simple gifts made in school, and maybe a dinner out Anthony turns 17 this year - our birthdays are five days so that she wouldn’t have to cook. I received my share apart. My daughters all have children. Rachel has Miof hand-made cards and gifts when my three daughters were young - and I think I chael and Abby - 19 and 17, Joy has Emilia - 6, and Gretchen has Anthony…and still have every one of their creations tucked away somewhere. They’ll find them she also has Jack - who just turned 18 months. all someday, long after I’m gone. And they’ll remember and reminisce and smile All three of my daughters have a reason to celebrate Mother’s Day, but for and shed a few tears while showing their kids…and their grandkids…well… Gretchen, it’s especially true. She and Anthony’s father went their separate ways maybe they’ll save a few from the dumpster as they’re cleaning out the house! when Anthony was about three and a half. Gretchen worked full-time and put As they got older my daughters reminded me every year how I had a lot of herself through school eventually finishing her doctorate in occupational therapy nerve being born so close to Mother’s Day as it put pressure on them a mere two - a single mother patching together baby-sitting and trying to make ends meet weeks apart. I’ve always told them that they don’t have to do anything for either much like I did during my single motherhood days. my birthday or for Mother’s Day, but if they still felt they had to do something And then she met and married Mike and about a year later, Jack came along. then to keep it small and simple. A card, a plant, new garden gloves, sharing Anthony and Jack are fifteen and a half years apart. A teenager and a baby. So brunch, and for the most part, that’s what we do. Gretchen celebrates Mother’s Day and motherhood from both ends of the childExcept for last year when I reached one of those “milestone” birthdays - when rearing spectrum. Anthony is driving and finishing up his junior year of high
MY MEMOIRS
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