A Memorable Birthday

On the 18th of April, 2004, I turned another year older. I can't say it was my happiest birthday. It certainly was a memorable birthday. 

I had just taken my father home to die. I picked him up at Kaiser Hospital in Sacramento and drove him to our family home in Folsom. 

My parents bought our house in 1950 but we didn't move in permanently until 1959 when they loaded up their four children, including baby Rory, less than a year old, and a parakeet named Jupiter, into a 1952 Packard and drove south on a dirt road called The Al-Can Highway, all the way from Fairbanks, Alaska, to the PCH and on to California,  an adventure of almost 3000 miles. I don't know if it was a good idea, but that's the sort of mom and dad they were. 

My employers at Larson Dental Lab bought me a flight to Sacramento and gave me a week with pay so that I could go home to say goodbye to my father. He had been diagnosed with stomach cancer and was not expected to live long. 

I was to stay at home with my parents to care for them. My sisters and brother, his wife and family were close by.

Somebody decided that I should be given a surprise birthday party. 

I remember feeling  a little suspicion when I saw my mother, momentarily freed from the dementia caused by Alzheimer's, sneaking a cake into the house with a look of mischief and delight on her face.  

I don't remember what we ate or what we talked about that afternoon, but I do remember that my father rose from his death bed, to sit at my side, and that together, as a family, we celebrated my 56th birthday. 

That I shall remember so long as I live. 

He died a week later, surrounded by the people he loved.