HAPPY BIRTHDAY

         May 27th! It's Morgan's birthday. Don't worry, I'm not about to inflict doom and gloom on you. I already wrote a threnody for myself the other day and with the help of a dear friend, worked my way out of the pit. It's time to be gentle and celebrate a lovely person. It doesn't even aggrieve me that she can't celebrate alone this year. How could she help that her big day would fall on Memorial Day?

         Morgan would have been flattered, a National holiday for her birthday. She had a way of getting names and dates confused. She was sure that Mount St. Helens erupted on her birthday. I think that was her way to show us that she was unique and worthy of the honor of the gods. She was off by nine days; it blew its top May 18, 1980. I never saw reason to correct her; it was a harmless delusion that wouldn't subject her to ridicule.

         My mouth did fall open one day while out joy riding she said that she liked the looks of the Toyota Treckle.

"Treckle?"

"Yes, like that red car in front of us."

"Dear, that is a TER-SELL."

For years "treckle" was an inside joke in the immediate family, one that she would as gladly bring up, with a shy smile on her lips, as I would.

         “Joy ride” is not the right term to describe what we did that day. Morgan always had to have a destination. She could not simply enjoy going nowhere; but on arrival anywhere, she would then be anxious to get back home. As I am writing this, I wonder inside if that is how she considered life, but why speculate. Better to celebrate her.

         They were honoring her in the Grand Union this morning by playing "Are You Lonesome Tonight", one of her favorite songs. She could never remember words to anything but the little songs she wrote for our daughter, but she would moan along to Elvis. She liked "I Can't Help Falling In Love With You" even better. Even though she grew up in the fifties, she wasn't a big Elvis fan; he was her cousin Cindy's torch.

         It was my cover versions of the songs that I would sing to put my daughter to sleep that were Morgan's favorites. I would be summoned as reinforcement when Lixie would tire of her voice. When Morgan spoke, Tallulah Bankhead was in the room, but as a singer she came over as an amazingly flat Marlene Dietrich.

         "Mommy, you can't sing, get Daddy." I would enter and launch into "Wise men say, only fools rush in," and then have to re-cue the band and sing it in another key. Finally I would find the right attack to hit the low notes and the concert would go on until silence was heard from the bed. I would then walk out to the hall and into our bedroom where Morgan waited. An encore was needed.

"Do the chairs in parlor seem empty and bare?
Do you gaze at your doorstep and picture me there?"

         She had other favorites. Every time she heard the first theme of Shubert's Unfinished Symphony, my ears were assaulted with "Doooot doot deet deet dah dah." These sounds would emanate just after she would say "I love this piece; who is it by?." She would rarely remember who composed anything unless it were by Chopin. She attacked music with enthusiasm, if little talent. I don't remember if it were Morgan or her mother who told the story of her singing in elementary school. She insisted on belting every song out like an opera singer.

         It was "If You Were The Only Girl In The World", picked up from an episode of "Upstairs, Downstairs," that became "our song." It was the song I tried to sing to her the night she died but she couldn't hear me over the oxygen that was trying to keep her on this earth. I had sung it often in a quiet voice at the hospital and it always seems to draw a smile and bring her back. That night it didn't and she passed.

         I am so comforted by the term ‘passed’. In interviewing people to do their taxes, I notice its use by older Black women. “It is a lovely term of endearment,” my dear friend says, “tells one they cared about the person.” She’s right, and if a word can move, “pass” sways in a gentle rocking motion. Unlike cruder, more brutal words, pass gives a sense of life, of moving on, to where I do not know. It talks not of the dead, but to the living. She passed in front of us, and I am, in the words of the old spiritual “only passing through.” I am stopping on the way to celebrate this day, and to smile in the memories conjured up from the mist. Thanks for indulging me.

Valatie May 27, 2002