Birthdays

Special moments, such as birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays prove difficult if your loved one lives elsewhere. He or she might reside thousands of miles away, making it challenging to get together to celebrate. 

One of our daughters, the one dressed in green on the right in the picture below, lives in Kentucky. We are in Houston, and it is too far for a brief visit, but we see her at least once a year. We stay in touch by phone. Whew! That phone is a relief and a blessing.

The daughter on the far-left lives near us. She is busy…way beyond belief, but she makes time for us. We eat together once a week.

The daughter in the middle lives in heaven. We can't see or talk to her anymore. When she lived on earth, we celebrated her birthday every year. She and her husband would come to our house from Austin, and we made a big to-do over her birthday.

Today, March 6, is her date of birth. You know how it goes. We remember the loss with sadness. And sometimes, our memories make us laugh.

Shelley, a happy-go-lucky lady, became depressed on birthdays. Yep, she did. Like many of us who philosophize as we circle the sun, she would say, "I'm old, and life is short." She was eighteen the first time she uttered this phrase. On her twenty-fifth birthday, she cried! She didn’t want to become an old lady.

And she didn’t. She never grew "old," but disease shortened her life.

As I reminisce today, I’m sharing pictures from former birthdays.

2010 

Shelley and her family.

 

2013

Shelley with her parents and sisters. At this time, she had symptoms of Dementia but hadn't been officially diagnosed.

2016

Her husband died in 2015. We found a caregiver for her in Austin. They came to our house for her birthday. She still loved to joke and laugh.

2018

The caregiver didn't work out, and we placed her in assisted living. Here she celebrated her birthday with her dad and brother-in-law. All three share birthdays around the same date.

2021

During Covid, the assisted living forced us to move Shelley to a new facility. They didn't do memory care. We didn't see her for six months after the move. She lost forty pounds between July and December.  The director made special arrangements for us to see her on her birthday. She had regained a little by the time we saw her in March. She was thrilled to see us.

2023

She could still smile. We stopped coloring her hair.

2024

Her last birthday on Earth. I always got frustrated when the facility staff didn't match her clothes. She had cute things.

As I look back and see her decline, I'm happy her suffering is over. She's well and happy in heaven now.

Help for Caregivers

Keep checking on the facilities if your loved one is in one. I used to match up Shelley's outfits, but the staff often ignored them. 

1.  It is okay to be sad. We will have those days when sadness hits us like a ton of bricks.

2.  Do whatever makes you feel better. Maybe a long walk, perhaps a special food treat.

3.  Talk to someone about your loved one. It might be a stranger! And that’s okay. Sometimes family members don’t want to listen, but if you need to talk, find someone.

Grief Has No Time Limits

 I received a digitized thumb drive of my old 8 mm films and watched them yesterday.  They were fun to watch. Most of these were of Shelley’s baby, toddler, and childhood days.

Yes, they made me smile and shed a tear or two. In these films, she displayed kindness and a willingness to help someone. I found myself saying, “Shelley, look how cute you were.” And then I remembered she would never see these films.

I dreamed of her last night. I suppose the films caused the dream. 

In my nighttime vision, I drove through cities and towns as I searched for her. When I finally found Shelley, she appeared as an adult. Now, get this. She was looking for a man to date! This frustrated me in my dream, and I have no idea why. She was a widow when she died. If she had lived, perhaps she would have been looking for a companion.

Shelley met her husband online. He was a good man, and they had ten years of a happy marriage before he passed.

 They both became sick at about the same time. Don, her husband, was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, and Shelley was diagnosed with early onset dementia.

Don took treatments at M.D. Anderson in Houston, but he reached the point where the physicians couldn’t do more. He knew he was dying and asked us to take charge of Shelley. Of course, we did. We spent over ten years caring for our adult child.

I do not regret it.

God took her to heaven on October 26, 2024. That’s been enough time for grief to lessen for me. Right? However, grief doesn’t work on a schedule. There are times when I swallow tears so others cannot see them.

Her earthly birthday is coming up. Her dad’s birthday is March 4, and hers was March 6. We celebrated them together in the past. Perhaps the anniversary of her birth is another reason the grief grows stronger, as well as my dream about her.

I know it is normal to dream of Shelley. I understand I may become sad when I see pictures of her.  And when special anniversaries or birthdays come around, I know it is natural for sadness to creep into my being.

She is entombed in Austin, Texas, next to her husband. I live in Houston. I took flowers last year on her birthday. I went again and took more bouquets on the anniversary date she left this earth. I won’t go to her burial site this year on her birthday, but I’ll be thinking of her.

And I’ll be grieving.

Tips for Caregivers

1.    Don’t punish yourself because you grieve. Remember this. Grief has no time limits.

2.    Never beat yourself up. Everyone is different. Other family members are on their own timetable of sorrow.

3.    Remove pictures that make you sad and replace them with happier photos of your loved one. I recently removed a photo from my fridge. It is a sweet picture of the two of us, but it makes me feek forlorn. Other pictures of her on my fridge don’t.  Isn’t that weird? The one I removed was a selfie I took of us while we waited for a doctor. We laughed so much that day. We went to lunch after the appointment and thoroughly enjoyed the time together.

4.    It’s okay to cry. "Tears are words the heart can't express" ~ Gerard Way

5.    Think of tears this way. "Tears are God's gift to us.  Our holy water.  They heal us as they flow." ~ Rita Schiano

I Went Back

 

Yesterday, November 20, 2025, I returned to Shelley’s residence, the last one she stayed in before the Lord moved her spirit to heaven.  She transcended to her eternal home on October 26, 2024.

How did I feel as I entered the familiar place?

I didn't become as melancholy as I expected. You see, I always thought if I could make it through the first year's anniversary, I’d survive. 

I pulled into a parking place I had used many times before and felt okay. Sure, I said a quick prayer, but I didn’t feel the urge to cry.

I was there to play the piano. I had offered to play many times in the past while Shelley was a resident, but my husband never wanted me to do so. Why, you ask? I have no idea. I’m no expert pianist, but I can play hymns in an adequate fashion, and we had donated hymn books to the facility.

Anyway, without telling him, I decided to go back and play for the residents. I can’t do much, but I can do that.

They had rearranged furnishings, but otherwise, it appeared the same. At least with furniture. The personnel changed many times over. I often wonder why that is.  Working with dementia patients is a difficult job. Perhaps that’s one reason why.

The activity director had positioned the patients in a gathering behind the piano. I like to see the audience, but with the piano placed that way, I couldn’t, but I heard some of them sing!

One lady sat in a wheelchair right behind me. I played old, familiar hymns, and she sang the words, and she hit all the high notes. She impressed me big time. She had a gorgeous voice. A choir master would have been overjoyed to have her in the choir.

Others sang too.  I’ve always said music is the last to leave the mind.

Before Shelley moved to memory care, she lived in an assisted living facility. Retired guys brought karaoke machines. They sang, and they danced with the residents. The ladies loved the attention.

I will play there again. I received more blessings than I gave.

Where Shelley was

Gay's Author Page

Tips for Caregivers

1.    Take music with you.

2.    Sing with them, even if you can’t carry a tune.

3.    If you play, do so for the residents.

4.    Even if you don’t know anyone in a facility, you can offer music to them.

5.    Offer to dance with them.