John

As you can see from the picture, John loved birthdays.  As I have recounted before, John discovered very early in life that birthdays brought extra attention to the Celebrated One and he developed a knack for asking for us to sing him “Happy Birthday” in front of a cake with a candle at a very early age, whether it was his birthday or not.  Mary Ann remembers putting candles in all sorts of food over the years in all sorts of seasons.  He almost always wanted chocolate icing, and he seemed at times to live for blowing out birthday candles, his or anyone else’s.  Most of my birthdays after he was born found him on my lap helping me to blow out the candles.  These were important rituals to him, and woe to the family member who tried to innovate on a birthday.  Fortunately, we had established most of these rituals for six years when John was born. Most of you know that John was born during the worst ice storm to hit McLean County in 50 years, on Valentine’s Day, 1990.  His birth overshadowed two events:  my achievement of tenure and promotion, announced on Feb. 13, 1990, and all subsequent Valentine’s Days.  John “birthdayed” large, and it was very hard to celebrate our romance on the same day as when John took center stage.Some birthdays, John had a party and we invited schoolmates and friends from CIDSO and later Special Olympics.  I remember one birthday here in Mahomet where Mary Ann had invited members of John’s Special Olympics Team. I had gone to Champaign to pick up John’s present when I got a call from Mary Ann telling me that Rocket’s face had swollen up and she was rushing him to the vets and I needed to come right home.  When I got home, she had hauled our idiot dog away, leaving me to entertain all of John’s guests with games and treats that she had carefully prepared.  I, of course, knew nothing of these plans, but John thought everything and everyone was just right.  Mary Ann got home to find me exhausted by worry and nervousness, our guests bewildered, and John happy as can be to have been the center of attention all night.   On the other hand, John was rarely invited to others’ birthday parties, so few that Mary Ann can remember them all.  This is because few families thought to invite him, or worried that they would not be able to “handle” him.  We worried that if he were invited, he would be left in a corner to entertain himself, it being assumed that he was there to watch.  John loved to play, and to interact with other kids.  He believed that the series of movies about dinosaur kids mixed together that he loved was a reflection of reality, and he always puzzled why it was so hard for him to achieve the same sense of belonging to a group in real life.  His Special Olympics’ group was indeed special, as was the CIDSO group for us.  ”Special” means a group in which no excuses, explanations, or apologies are required.  Unconditional acceptance in other words.  John sought for this his entire life, and was happiest when he found it.  Birthdays were one day when, especially among his family, he got all the unconditional love he could handle.  And of course, so did we.This will be our second birthday without him.  I hope all of the family will be in touch by phone, and we will remember some of our more memorable moments together on previous Feb. 14’s.  Last year was a mixture of happiness at all of the joy John brought into our lives, and sadness that he has been taken from us.  It grows harder to be alone on his birthday, to have gone from his deep excitement and joy to nothing at all.  We do try to celebrate, and perhaps that feeling will gain precedence over the years, but for now it is still more loss than joy.  This Valentine’s Day, I will teach and Mary Ann will teach yoga in the evening, and it will be like any other Thursday.  Except, of course, on the inside, it will the beginning of the Difficult Season, leading to the second anniversary of his accident and death. I only dream that one day I can return his unaffected and winning smile.  What a philosophy to embrace:  ”Everybody laugh, because today might as well be my birthday.”