The one with the birthdays

Today is Christmas Eve, one of my favorite days of the year.  Each year, since the day I was born, Christmas Eve found my family and I singing Happy Birthday, opening presents and generally celebrating the fact that we made it another year.  My aunt Carol’s birthday was Christmas Eve, so never an excuse could be found for not celebrating December 24.

Carol loved her birthday.  Starting the day after Halloween (give or take a week or two) Carol became rather “difficult” to live with.  She knew her birthday was on the way, however, given the inability to read and interpret a calendar she found herself lost in a sea of “is today my birthday?”  I can’t even imagine the frustration that she must have felt each year.  Watching stores display Christmas decorations, making her way slowly through each snowstorm, listening to Christmas Carols and yet never quite knowing if today is the day. The funny thing is that Carol could not understand the meaning of a calendar but always knew which soda dispenser had Pepsi.  She never understood FICA, taxes and health insurance but always found great pride in receiving her paycheck which usually totaled no more than $5 or $6 per pay period.  Carol’s brain may not have possessed the ability to solve world hunger but she knew more than enough about this world to teach me a lesson or two.

It is interesting to look back on Carol’s life now that I’m older.  Now that I better understand how crazy this world is, full of people with innumerable backgrounds, all trying to make our way in the same world but with completely different perspectives.  What was Carol’s perspective?  How did her early days of living in an institution form (or maybe deform) her perspective?  I believe a set of cigarette burns on her arms proved to be the tipping point, the moment in which my mother decided Carol needed to come live with us.  Carol’s perspective, the day she moved in, included little more than survival.  She adapted so quickly to our family though and taught me more than I probably even realize today.

I don’t believe in carrying regrets with you from day to day.  All my past actions are just that … actions from the past that remain permanent and everlasting.  I cannot change them or delete them from my personal life history so I feel it is important to learn from my mistakes but then let them go.  No need for regret.  However, my one and only regret in life is not being more active in Carol’s last few years.   I should have made it harder for her Alzheimer’s to block memory of “Nessa.” I should have painted her nails bright red - she loved that.  I should have made her more coffee and worried less that she was using too many Sweet ‘N Low packets.  I should have sent her more cards in the mail, after I moved away.  She REALLY loved to get mail.

Technically Carol was my aunt but in all reality she was more of a sister.  As a child I felt protective of her yet gave her a hard time just like I gave my brother a hard time.  I knew in my head that Downs Syndrome limited Carol but in my heart she was just like any other member of my family and I (probably unfairly) expected her to be just like the rest of us.  Today is her birthday and sadly (for me) she is no longer here.  I just hope that she’s having the biggest party ever up in heaven with “Mommy and Daddy.”  I hope that her new heavenly body allows her to communicate the words that we knew she wanted to say but just couldn’t utter.  Happy Birthday Carol!

Also, on a side note, today is Mimi’s birthday.  My sweet little girl who found herself abandoned and all alone in an animal shelter many years ago turned 6 today.  She started life as an abandoned little puppy, all alone in a big world full of human rules and regulations that just aren’t instinctual to a canine brain.  It makes me sad to think that my little Mimi sacrificed most of her young puppyhood, in a shelter run, waiting for John and I to come along and literally rescue her.  Happy Birthday little Mimi!!!!

This entry was posted on Thu, Dec 25 2008 at 01:44 and is filed under Vanessa's Ramblings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.