The Last Ten Days in March

Fewer than 3 percent of the dates in one year make up most of the significant days in my life. Some are happy, while the others are sad. They are the last ten days in March.

March 22. My birth date, back in 1949. In those days, obstetrics weren’t nearly as advanced, and my mother didn’t know she’d be having twins until three weeks before our arrival. She guessed something was up, because boy were we heavy. Because it was the income tax season, my father – a CPA – didn’t have time to buy and assemble another crib before April 15, so Frank and I shared one for a short time.

The twins, March 1949

 

March 26. This is the latest addition to the period. My mother passed away last year, three weeks after being admitted to Northwestern Memorial with a stroke, six months short of her 90^th birthday. While there, tests found pervasive malignancies, and she returned to home hospice care after a five-day stay. Her funeral on March 30 was one day shy of being 40 years to the day of my father’s death.

Mom, engagement photo 1946

 

We are still getting used to her being gone, especially when we want to clear up a mystery – for example, what was the story with you living on the North Side after you were born? – or give her the latest gossip or news. Even when she began to slow down, we somehow thought she’d live forever.

Mom, Marisa and Grant 1982

 

March 29. A mid-afternoon phone call at work in 1973, advising me my father had been rushed to a hospital I’d never heard of, began the worst day of my life. After driving 45 minutes through near-freezing rain, I arrived at St. Anne’s Hospital to find my father had died at age 55. My painful account is once again noted. http://brulelaker.blogspot.com/2010/12/sudden-death-in-family.html

Dad 1937

 

March 31. The final date is a happy and most fortuitous one. I have my hay fever and allergy shots to thank for meeting the love of my life shortly before graduation in 1971. If I had gone a day earlier or later, who knows where I’d be now? Here’s a more cheery report. http://brulelaker.blogspot.com/2011/03/forty-years-ago-today.html

The engaged couple 1972

 

So I celebrate birth, love and death all in the span of less than three weeks. From 1973 until 2004, I worried my end could come at any time. After making it to 55, I figured every day from here on in was a blessing . . . and it is. Somehow “65” – as odd as it seems to think it, say it and write it – is quite o.k. I’m back to full health, roaming the neighborhoods taking photographs and running the basketball court missing shots. We celebrate a birthday this weekend and observe yahrzeits next weekend, then it’s back to normal . . . until two birthdays and an anniversary during 18 days in January.