Today is Fat Tuesday. I don't really remember if your birthday ever fell on Fat Tuesday during your lifetime. Surely it must have... during 27 years... but who would have noticed? YOU were bound and determined to treat EVERY day as though it were a day of celebration! Today I will celebrate your life by painting at my easel. I continue to wonder what I might have accomplished as an artist, by now, had I embraced my life with even half the passion for each day that you did!
Today there will not be a red-velvet cake. Maybe some other year…when all, or some, of the loves in your life are around to help eat it… I'll make another, and we'll feed your piece to the birds!
Today I am painting and listening to songs that you liked. Tonight when your dad comes home, we'll open the little packet of freeze-dried ice cream that he bought. We’ll share it one delicious crumble at a time until it’s gone (just like always, only different). We’ll think of the mountain-top and white-water picnics, the scenic-view over-looks, and the interstate rest-stops that were backdrop for the ritual of sharing which emerged from our short-term-windfall supply of this “space-age delicacy.”
Pete, a year ago on this day you were in An Undisclosed Location, away from the people who loved you most. What I wrote to you then I would say to you now as well:
“…I want you to know that I am thinking of that morning of hard labor, years ago... how time has slipped past us... how you have grown! inside and out... and I've never had a wish that you were any different from how you turned out to be... I have never been anything but proud of you, even in the moments I've worried... I've never felt anything but love for you, even when I yelled at you for spilling Kool Aid on the floor... I hope (in fact) that you don't remember that.
At 1:04 est I will remember again the moment of your birth and rejoice, as (in fact) I have for the last 27 years.
Be safe, and know that your dad and I love you still,
your mom”
Pete, you are with us in our hearts… we thank you for all that you have given us.
