Happy birthday

I woke up and it was your birthday. It felt more ordinary than last year but I think that starts to happen the more time passes without the person worth celebrating.

I looked in the mirror as I got ready for the day. I thought of you. Growing up I never thought I looked like anyone in my family. I have the dark hair and eyes of my father maybe but I didn't know him enough to really know, you know? Instead I wanted to look like you. You were beautiful, elegant, strong. Still staring into the mirror I studied my face, my eyes, my nose. Do I look like you? Even now? I want to so badly, I always have. I scrunched my face, elongating my neck and tilting my head to the left seeing if it made me look any different by doing so, making me look any more like you. Hmmm. Maybe in my nose?

I started the day. I put on my favorite necklace. It was yours. A gold turtle charm you brought back as a souvenir from a vacation from the Cayman Islands. Did you have a good time? I wish I could ask you your favorite part. I'm so thankful mom gave me this necklace for my birthday a few years ago after she read something I once wrote about a turtle. I wear it every day.

I sat down at the coffee shop and drank my coffee black like you always did out a similar Blue Willow mug that they have just like the ones we had in our cabinets at home growing up. It felt like we were having coffee together.

I took a long drive through the countryside passing horses and I stopped on my way home for a hot dog like we always would when we took those drives together. Mom text me she was having one too. She cried while she ate hers. I didn’t tell her right away but I did too. While I ate mine in my car. I put on relish mustard and diced onions on top. What were your favorite toppings? I can't remember but I think you loved diced onions too. I tossed the wrapper on the passenger side floor and hurried home to take out the dog.

I slowly opened the door and walked in my apartment quietly trying not to wake her. I heard her snoring, loudly in the next room, probably on my bed under the covers. I turned on the lights of the bathroom, gently putting my keys on the counter, looking into the mirror one more time. Searching…

June barked. She heard me. I grabbed her leash and we took a little walk around the neighborhood. "Here, lover." I called for her as we headed to the dog park. I smiled since you often used this term of endearment for all your dogs and often me.

We sat in the sun. June rested at my feet. I replayed the events of this ordinary Thursday in my head and remembered I was like you in more ways than not. I'm so grateful for that. I opened up my phone and responded to mom's last text with a photo I had recently snapped of myself. I send a lot of photos to mom these days to remind her I'm OK even on the days I don't feel it. Today was a day I wanted to remind her I was.

"I feel like I look like her today. Do you think I have her nose?" I typed.

I wanted to so badly. She was so beautiful, elegant, strong.

The dots of her response danced on my phone until my phone buzzed back. I looked down at what she wrote.

"You have always looked like her."

I smiled. I zoomed in on the photo I sent. I studied my face, my eyes, my nose. Beautiful, elegant, strong.

I looked like her, my grandmother.

I always have.