You Did NOT Just Forget That....

How bad is it when your husband has to remind both you and your brother that today marks the date your mother died? Should you both feel like guilty children or is there some intentional self-preservation memory block going on today? Shouldn't Big Boy have called today then, or did he intentionally block it out too? And is it odd that though they live in two separate continents today happened to be they day they reunited?

On a Serious Note...

The 15th marks the Yarzheit of Poker Chick's mother. Oh wait, no it's not. It's her birthday. Correction. It was her birthday. On an August 15th, she came into the world. On a May 3rd, she left it. But we don't acknowledge birthdays after someone's gone. Why the heck is that? After all, if your mother died on a May 3rd, wouldn't you rather forget that day rather than be haunted years later by visions of finding her "expired"* in her bed? Wouldn't you rather celebrate her life? But apparently that's not how it works. You're supposed to think of them on their "Yarzheit". So this leaves Poker Chick feeling confounded and alone on August 15th. There's no candle to light. No service to attend. Just constant guilt and confusion, feeling like you should be doing something else, something other than pretending today is just any other day (for example, Big Boy is celebrating the day by getting a repeat thyroid biopsy; the first one was suspicious or non-diagnostic or whatever term doctors like to give it when they f*cked up).

Why is this? After years of life, why is it that we only remember people on the day they died? Can someone please explain this to Poker Chick?


*This was the term the doctors and nurses used. You think Poker Chick'd make that sh*t up?