Inside Gigi's World

July 23rd.

Starts off just like every other day.

I woke up, showered and went on the days adventures.

I wore new shoes…….

You see, I know when the calendar hits July, there are certain things will happen.

July 1st will come and go and the countdown to July 23rd will start before I even realize it.

July 20th, the air feels thick.

July 21st, I’ll allow myself one, five minute slot to let the emotions flow. However, I have come to realize that I am never really sure which emotions are going to come out to play or when they are going to arrive to the party.

July 22nd. I put “cake and candles” on my “shit we need” list on the dry erase board because I have to get it the day of, it has become part of the tradition.

July 23rd. I catch my breath, I take a moment. I eventually make it to the grocery store where, every year, I always seemed to be asked, in one form or another, who the cake is for.

Today I was asked, while making my decision which cake to get (which is almost always white cake with buttercream frosting) by a woman trying to pick out a dessert if my choice was any good, there was another one just like it she was thinking about getting. She asked me why I didn’t get the sunflower cake I was originally eyeing.

“I don’t think Mikey would like that?”

“Is he your son?”

“Nope, one of my best friends.”

“You don’t think he’d like that fancy sunflower cake?”

“Well, I can’t ask him. He’s dead.”

“Oh”….awkward pause….”I’m sorry for your loss”

My head instantly starts screaming with rage “HE’S NOT LOST!! I KNOW WHERE HE IS!!”

But instead, I quickly realize I just sounded like a complete asshole to this woman who was just trying to make small talk and I feel even worse (which I know I shouldn’t but I do). I then find myself explaining that every year on his birthday, I buy cake and candles. I light the candles and let them burn out by themselves before myself and my family wish him a happy birthday and eat a cake for him.

I am usually now raw and more emotional because once I say it out loud, I have to rip myself from the land of denial that I tend to sit comfortably in and admit to myself that denial is still the only feeling that I am willing to handle.

I drive home.

I light candles.

We eat cake.

• 

This year it took eight minutes for the candles to burn out.

Everyone in the house thinks I should blow the candles out myself and make a wish.

I disagree.

It is his birthday. It is his cake.

I let the candles go out on their own to bring him peace and hopefully me, a little luck.

To be honest, I’m not sure why I ever started this. I did it his first birthday he was gone and have kept up with it. I think it is because I can not allow myself to be older than him.

This year has hit different.

I have been thinking more about Mikey and Amie these days.

I actually think about them every day.

But it has been in over drove lately, which leaves my heart feeling achy and lonely.

I have been thinking about the last time we were all together for the last time….

Church Street.

He was leaving for his deployment.

I don’t think any of us thought it would be the last time we would all be together. It would not be the last time I would see him but the last time, the three of us were delirious enough to think youth and good health would last forever and we would all be together again.

Then, I think about his funeral.

Amie was there. I had missed her. We hugged but it was different. He was the glue. Her and I had already started to tear at the seams.

I know this is awful to admit out loud but I always thought it would be him and I at her funeral. He was not here for that. I had to do that one alone.

7 years but 8 birthdays.

It feels weird to say that.

It feels like it was just yesterday but it also feels like a 100 years ago all at once.

I think of him going to whatever family party I dragged him to.

I think of that greenish-teal car that he loved and making Kim (R.I.P) laugh so hard that she pissed her pants in the back seat of it.

Him screaming “YOU ASSHOLES!!!” while I couldn’t breath because I was laughing so hard.

Come to think of it, he called me an “Asshole” a lot. It was deserved. It makes me laugh now.

He had a phone case with flames on it.

He would do anything for anyone.

He was the strong one out of all of us.

Today he would have turned 38 years old.

Thirty-Eight…..

That seemed so old when we were 12, 15, 18, even in our 20s.

• 

Once you hit your 30s and someone is gone, you quickly start to realize just how young that is.

No one physically lives forever, I know that. Death, truly is the most inclusive thing in this lifetime. It does not discriminate against age, gender, race, religion. It comes as fast as a tidal wave and consumes everything in its wake.

But it is up to us to remember the ones we have lost. It is the only way to keep their memory alive and well, even when their physical bodies can’t be.

Happy Birthday Mikey. I miss you.

•