When do you stop counting the milestones? When do you stop recognizing your life's special days? When do you stop saying, it would've been four years today. Or this month makes eight years since. . . .
When do you stop noticing dates that really have no meaning anymore? When do the anniversaries and event markers just go back to being regular days?
On May 28th my grandfather would've been 98.
But he didn't turn turn 98. He'll never be 98, or 99 or 100. But every May I'll calculate in my head, subtracting 1903, and think about my PaPa. But he'll be 96 forever.
On June 28th my grandparents would've been married 77 years. Except this year there was no cake. No big party out at my aunt's farm. It was just another day when the sun fell and the moon rose.
On March 20th my parents would've celebrated 36 years together.
On their anniversary, a Tuesday this year, my mom called me at work just to say the words.
"Today would've been 36 years," she whispered.
"I know," I told her. I felt the vice in my throat, and I just tucked my chin in and let the tears fall.
"I just felt like I needed to share it with someone."
It's not that we were even sad about it. Well, except that we were. It was a Date that had turned into just a day. It was an anniversary of something that no longer exists. My parents aren't married anymore. There was nothing to celebrate, nothing to commemorate. But the day still stands. There will always be a 20th of March.
I'm sure my mother thought about that 21 year old girl who stood before God and creation and vowed to love this boy forever. I'm sure she thought about the pretty, young thing in the simple veil who was surrounded by girls in sea foam green dresses and brothers in bow ties.
But when is it that the Big Days again become just 24 hours of time?
I keep asking because I don't know.
I just want to stop remembering dates. I want to be able to have a November 20th without thinking about how many years my college boyfriend and I would've been together. That's just stupid.
Or will I never get those days back? Will they always be red letter?
Soon my calendar will be full - names in red ink for birthdays, couples' names written in black for anniversaries. Little numbers circled for due dates and future weddings - just waiting for their names to be written by a red or black pen.
I am my mother's daughter, I guess. My mom's date book is jam packed with her beautiful cursive hand. Every friend I've ever had, every friend she's ever had and all their children. Every cousin, every niece and nephew. She knows the date of their birth and the day they celebrate their marriage.
Little hearts and color-coded names scatter the boxes of dozens of calendars past. She keeps them all and every year the old ones come out so she can transcribe names and ages onto the blank slated boxes of the new year. I guarantee that as soon as she gets her pages for 2002, she'll draw a big heart on June 30th and write a giant 26 in the middle. She'll do the same thing on March 13th for G, only a fat 29 will fill the square instead.
And in September she'll draw a little heart around the 22 and scribe David & Judy on the line below it with a small 6 above the "y."
But March 20th she'll leave blank.
Some dates are better left unmarked.
The notify never forgets a birthday.