Edward’s Diary Entry 102: A Birthday, a Deathday, an Everyday

It isn’t every day you get to celebrate a 92nd birthday, but today we did. And especially a mother’s 92nd birthday, and yet it happened. We stayed in and we went out, socialising at home and having a fish fry at a restaurant. And then, finally alone, I sat me down under a cloudy night sky and breathed the air. My crow tree in front of me, empty during the night. Because the seven crows congregate here in the early morning, and only lucky I can view them then. A cat at my feet, a dog sniffing around the frosty ground. The pale night sky speaking of snow tomorrow. A well to drink from, with freezing water to chill my mouth. The clock has ticked on for another day, and we’re all still alive. Almost everyone we know. And my mother is well, and others in the family I suppose. I hear of a 4-year-old who has died of malaria on a faraway continent, but I never knew him. His mother will cry. My mother has her two children still. Why should there be anything fair in life, or unfair? Who knows what life has in store for us. And look, my love sits by a bedside and holds a hand getting colder and colder. He won’t last much longer, they say. He’s reached the end. Lived a good life, he says. Been applauded by four children for being a good father, but he will be sorely missed. It wasn’t really time, or was it? I guess it was – it is his turn to pass on, with body ravaged by disease. And my love will be sad, bereaved, bereft. She won’t have him any more in the flesh. Only in memory. But she will have me, and I her, until that too comes to an end, if ever. It isn’t every day you get to celebrate any birthday, or a deathday, or any day for that matter, so every day is special, every breath is new, every instant is the only time we have. Fuel awareness and live, my love; live for now, live for today, and live perhaps for another day… Whatever happens I will love you.