[Ravendust]: 343.Famous First lines entry

I could never remember when it was that May started to be thought of as my birthday month. I suppose it must have begun when I was really young, my mother was always into magic and the such. She believed horoscopes and always took those weird tests that told you what your true birth month was. I think that she changed hers as well to match what those tests said.

She was an odd woman, always believing in that sort of stuff, but I didn’t mind. She was my mother, and had always taken great care of me. I couldn’t remember just when my true birth month was, but to be honest I really didn’t care anymore. We didn’t celebrate as openly as most families, I had few friends and didn’t desire large, noisy parties. If I had had my way, I would just slip into my next age unnoticed. But my mother didn’t want that, she didn’t like the idea of not celebrating.

She was proud of the fact that as each year I grew older I grew more intelligent, she liked that I didn’t mind that she had changed my birth month. I think that deep down inside though, she still remembered on what day, and probably even the exact time, on which I was born.

Most other families thought that she was a bit odd in the head- how many parents, after all, changed the birth date of their child just because some quiz said that it was their true birth month? That’s probably why I was generally alone growing up- they thought that I was just as loopy as my mother. But in truth she was quite intelligent and practical. She had an I.Q. near 200, and always took care of me. I loved my mother, and any time some fool decided to say something about her sanity, I let them know how I felt through my fists.

My mother didn’t approve of my methods though, and more times than not I found myself grounded and sent to bed with an empty belly because of my brashness. I didn’t mind though. She never stood up for herself with those people though. I saw the anger that burned in her eyes, though she took the abuse silently. I admired her, and still do.

She got really ill a few months ago, cancer the doctors said, cancer in its later stages. There was nothing to do; they gave her only a few weeks to live. She survived for about 6 months after that, using her magical remedies to help hold back the cancer. My mother wanted nothing more than to live long enough, at least, to see me graduate from high school. She wanted to see me off into the real world.

Graduation came, and as we were leaving arm in arm, myself holding my diploma, she collapsed. I was horrified when the ambulance came and they quickly hooked her up to several different things including a mask for breathing. She looked terrible, so fragile and old then, despite the fact that she was only in her early thirties. She’d never looked like that, and it terrified me.

My mother died several months later as I sat beside her. She didn’t even wake up. She had slipped into a coma about a month ago and had died in her sleep. The doctors told me that her cancer had been eating away at her, that she had most likely been in severe pain for a long time. I didn’t understand why she didn’t ever tell me of her pain, why she’d always smiled and said it was okay when I asked her how she was doing. She’d been such a strong woman; I had never seen an ounce of pain in her expression.

As the date for her funeral came closer, I became curious- when was I really born? It was as though, with her passing, my mind had decided of its own accord that it wanted to know, even though I really didn’t care. My mother had given me my birthday. She had carried me within her womb for 9 months, had raised me the right way. I say that she had more than enough right to give me a new birthday.

I did my research, dug up my birth certificate from her personal effects. December 9. I was awed; December 9 was the day set for her funeral. How ironic it was, I thought, that the day of her burial was the day that she had brought me into life. When her coffin was lowered into the ground, before I threw that first handful of dirt over her, I set my birth certificate upon the sleek surface of the coffin. That act in itself showed that I accepted May as my birthday month. That I would no longer care that she had changed it before I could remember when it truly was. I loved her, and even now I celebrate my birthday in May, and mourn her death in December.