Birthday Bear

Yesterday was Polly’s birthday. She’s 12 years old. That’s pretty senior for a dog, although beagles live to be around fifteen or so in the right circumstances. We celebrated with treats, singing the Happy Birthday song, and giving her extra love and attention. I felt like Sarah stayed close throughout the day. Polly and I took a walk to the park in the morning. A lot of days recently Polly doesn’t want to walk as far as the park, just around the block or so. But maybe that’s because of the heat.

Yesterday we made it all the way to the park and wandered around a bit. There were two kids playing near where Sarah’s memorial bench is. They looked like a younger girl and an older boy, or possibly two girls. It was hard to say. They were pretending to ride horses, with their arms up in the air for reins, and running around in circles. At least that’s what I think they were doing. The sight of them moved me to tears and I had a little cry, sort of a sneaky little cry because I didn’t want to upset the children. I somehow felt that Sarah incorporated herself into their fantasy play. She loved horses so much.

Sarah felt close last night too when we brought down Birthday Bear to sing happy birthday to Polly. He’s a stuffed bear whose paw you can squeeze to sing. We also have the “Old Man,” a stuffie who sings Happy Birthday and farts. They sang in concert for Polly, who looked nonplussed. I felt Sarah was definitely there, because she loved this birthday ritual. She even brought Birthday Bear to school once to show to the other children when there was some sort of unit on family traditions.

I guess we will have to build new family traditions now that Sarah is gone. My father is arriving on the train today from New York, for his life to begin here in Maryland nearby us. I guess there will be new family traditions from his presence. I just don’t want Sarah to be forgotten in any way.

The leader of our Compassionate Friends group talked about the fact that sometimes people who lose a child end up getting all new friends, sort of the way people who become sober get all new friends. Because their old friends don’t understand how much they’ve changed. They just don’t get it. Not that I was a happy-go-lucky, stay-out-all-night and party kind of person when Sarah was alive. I’ve always been kind of an introvert. But the old me died too when Sarah died.