Happy Anniversary. *toot*

Fourteen years ago, St. Patrick's Day changed for me. This erstwhile nondescript potential party day became one of the saddest days of my life. Now it is the anniversary of one of the saddest days of my life.

It is Sunday morning. I am sitting at home. Around ten, the phone rings. It is my sister. She is clearly upset and says, "You're not gonna like this."

"What?" I say, but I know. I am already scared and starting to cry.

"Mom died."

My knees buckle and I crumple to the floor and grab at my glasses, yank them off my face, and throw them, saying "No, no, no."

I make my body as small as possible. I keep the receiver pressed tightly between my shoulder and my ear. I keep hoping for some good news, but it doesn't arrive. My sister and I bawl into the phone to each other.

An hour later I am at the house I grew up in. Dad and my two sisters and two of my brothers are in the living room. Mom is in the bedroom. I go in to see her.

My dad tells the story again. He had checked on her in the morning and she was sleeping. Then he went out to the living room, turned on the TV, and started to watch "Finian's Fucking Rainbow" (as he put it and as it will forever be called by me). The next time he checked on her, she was dead.

Five years later, on Presidents' Day, my dad died.

~

I miss my mom and dad.