My mother would be 107

Today (US time) is my mother’s 107th birthday.I always remember it, and on both days—US time and NZ time—so I guess I really remember. But beyond that, my memories of her are few, and seem so very distant.

Last year I said:

The reality is that I think about the birthdays of everyone I know when the date arrives here, which is a day early for friends in Europe or the USA. Actually, Facebook does the same thing, reminding me of someone’s birthday when the date arrives here, in my timezone, and not on the date it arrives where the person lives. This situation is confusing under the best of circumstances, but add in my lack of focus and general forgetfulness, and it means that I miss more birthdays than I remember.

My mother’s is one of the very few birthdays I think of on both days, and I deliberately do that. The first day (NZ time) is because I’m in that day, and the second (US time) is because that’s where she was born, so it kind of is her “real” birthday” to me. None of which matters except that it pretty much guarantees that I’ll remember it when I forget so many others.

As for general memories of her, my own advancing years (I’m already a year older than my mother ever was, with another year due to be added to my tally in three weeks), plus everything I’ve been through in the more than four decades since she died, including my own bereavement, means there apparently isn’t enough room to store and recall very many memories, and some of them are snippets. There have been plenty of times my sister has reminded me of something that happened when we were kids, and I have absolutely no memory of it. That’s not necessarily because I was too young, though sometimes I was, but, rather, because of everything I mentioned.

Still, there are times that are are better than others, especially how tired I am, because that affects my memory in general. So, I take things as they are at any given moment moment, and I simply remember what I can at that time. Her birthday, however, is still the one thing I always remember and think about—and for all the reasons I’ve spelled out in previous years in the posts linked below.

Happy Birthday, Mom, and thanks. Always.

Previous birthday posts:
My mother would be 106 (2022)
My mother would be 105 (2021)
Remembering my mother’s birthday in 2020 (2020)
Remembering my mother’s birthday in a new life (2019)
Still remembering my mother’s birthday (2018)
Remembering my mother’s birthday (2017)
My mom would be 100 (2016)
Mom at 99 (2015)
Remembering my mother (2014)
Mom’s birthday (2013)
Mom’s treasure (2012)
Remembering birthdays (2011)
That time of year (2009)
Memories and words (2008)

Related:
Tears of a clown – A 2009 post that’s still one of my favourites about my mother.