Twas my mother who taught me how to stretch a birthday into a season—not mere days or even a week, and I’ve needed that. My birthdays tend to serve up a self-induced flare, and this March was no different. For weeks, tears came easily, with a side of wistfulness and sprinkled with grief. I grumble-bumbled around and eventually realized the origin of this birthday-season lachrymosity.*

Ten years ago, I asked my mom for permission to celebrate my Spring Break birthday in Mexico. She heartily agreed, but congestive heart failure wasn’t allowing enough oxygen to get to her brain—and she forgot (this is the part where I remind myself it was the disease, not my mom). Every time she started planning my birthday, I reminded her I’d be in Cancun…and each time, she was crestfallen. We settled on a pre-birthday bon voyage where I received the last birthday present from my parents—the first pink dress my dad bought when I was born, and a dainty sweater my mom knitted. In a way, they weren’t just birthday presents… they were presents from my birth day.

Ten years ago, on my birthday, I FaceTimed my mother, who was sitting in a recliner with a suspicious mechanical whirring noise in the background.

“Mom, what’s the whooshing, clicking noise?”

“Ohhh that—that’s your father’s CPAP oxygen. He’s letting me use it.”

“That’s very generous of Dad to let you take a hit of his oxygen,” I mused—but it confirmed my suspicions about her forget-me-not low O₂. She told me her brother peacefully passed away that morning.

Ten years ago, my sister and I were on different return flights, which meant she arrived at the airport two hours before I did. At the Cancún airport, there were church friends on her flight, and they agreed to drive her home so she could spend time with our parents instead of biding her time at the airport.

Ten years ago, during a layover in the Dallas–Fort Worth airport, I called my mom. She confided in me that her doctor had said it was time to transition to hospice care. She had only told her out-of-state sister, who was in town for my uncle’s funeral. She cried—heaving—at the thought of telling my dad while I cried silently, my voice unwavering as I comforted her, “It’s gonna be okay—sometimes you can graduate from Hospice.” Knowing that she woudn’t graduate and only had months to live.

This year, my pre-birthday celebration was at a Mexican resort near Cancun with my sister and the church friends who taxied her home a decade ago. There were poignant moments that mirrored ten years ago… and I was, once again, prone to bouts of lachrymosity.

On the trip home, our layover was in the Dallas–Fort Worth airport—where my body remembered the hospice conversation—and rebelled. My mind started reeling…frenetic, convoluted thoughts on a fast track to irrational. I stood, solemn and irate in the TSA line, my body screaming while I searched for our boarding passes. After security, I schlugged my way to our gate—seemingly a mile away. My body turned prickly. I started overheating, downed recovery meds, and pressed an ice pack against my neck. Mast cell mayhem ensued.

 I was well into week three of my birthday season before I recognized the impact of those mirrored moments—the birthday traumaversary—that pummeled my body and mind. I gave myself permission to grieve and cry unapologetically, for as long as I needed.

But, I didn’t wallow.. or marinate. My mom, who taught me to stretch a birthday into a season, also modeled an invaluable gift: a legacy of praise.