Care Partnering, Inspiration, Love, Music

happy birdday mummy

Mom was born on September 27, 1928. If she were still alive, she would have been 94 today, September 27, 2022.

On her birthday in 2015, her last one here on this earth, I visited her in jail, just as I did almost every day for several hours for four years. Here’s how I greeted her and how she responded:

Mummy is what she called her own mother. The full and wonderful story of what happened on her last birthday may be read at the three posts below (or here, here and here). Not surprisingly, reading them again just now made me cry ❤

it’s better to be queer on your deer than funny on your bunny on your birthday

put a candle on a cupcake and see if you feel as lucky as my mom

love comes in all shapes, sizes and colours including small, furry, and black and white

Death & Dying, Family, Life & Living, Memories, Poetry

some things and some people cannot be denied even when they’re dead

580808 Dad & Tude treated

I’m writing these words to acknowledge this date and it’s strange to me that it should have been so much easier to mark my father’s death than his birth.

Still, his role in my story is undeniable and so I cannot deny him.

in a quandary

a poem by punkie to mark her father’s birthday

who we/a/re you
tall dark stranger
who came and thus
engendered me?

i played hide
and seek behind the
uncertain safety
of my mother’s skirts

but it didn’t stop you
from tearing apart in time
what had been promised in
sickness and in health

i struggled to climb out
of vortexes that
still suck me in
and make tornadoes

look like children’s
tops spinning in the sun
on a summer afternoon
but they are not

and you never said
“i’m sorry” for the letters
or love unanswered so now
it’s hard for me

to heal and mark this
birth day i would rather
leave behind except without
it i would not be

in  a quandary.

© Susan Macaulay 2013 – 2015. I invite you to share the links widely, but please do not reprint or reblog or copy and paste my poems into other social media without my permission. Thank you.

https://myalzheimersstory.com/2015/01/14/the-days-my-daddy-died/

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