mourning mouse *

In which our Hero remembers a little girl who always picked him first

My dearest little Mouse,

Every year I take this day to think about you and the joy you bring into my life, and about the sacrifices we celebrate on this day that have made this life possible. At the store, one of the people with a box for donations for poppies was an old man in a wheel chair. And the not-much-younger woman who must have been his daughter told me, “He fought in the war.” I was flustered with Hollywood along with me, so I didn’t take the time I wish I had, to stop and talk. I did thank him for his service, though.

Life and death, that’s what this day is for me. Your life, my life, and the deaths of thousands neither of us ever knew. Except this year is different, because today is your birthday, and yesterday your grandfather died.

You never knew your other grandfather. You’re like me in that. We lost him a year or two before you were born and that’s always been a small private sadness, that he never got to meet his last two grandkids. I wish I’d known him better. I wish you’d known him at all.

Another way you’re like me in this tesselated grief is that I found out about his collapse as I was coming back from celebrating my birthday. One moment, my day. Next moment, the entire world had been shaken just a little.

I’ve never seen my father like that, before or since his father died. I hope never to see him so raw again, for his own sake, and because it will mean we’ve lost someone else so close. And I think of your father feeling that, and you watching him. I can only hope that having already visited once to say goodbye to his father during this protracted illness might be something to make it a little bit easier for him, for you and your sister.

Easier is all I can hope for. Your other grandfather has been gone for more than the twenty years you’ve been alive, and from time to time I think of him, when I think of our people. I still think of him, and I still miss him. He is a presence, just behind me. I hope you find that comfort too.

It’s weird that the connections make it across oceans and continents so that we can be so pained to lose someone we really knew so little. But known or not, he’s been present, and you’ve probably spoken to him many many times over the phone. He will always been one of the men who held you. Who gleefully showed you off to his neighbors and friends. Who hoisted you on his shoulders and beamed with pride at this brilliant child of his blood. Who loved you ferociously, as we all do, your family.

You’re probably not going to celebrate your birthday at all. You’re probably going to feel too sad, and maybe annoyed at the jerks like me who mark your birthday anyway. It’s not a reason for guilt. You may not be ready for that yet, but it’ll be a truth when you are ready to think about how he would have wanted you to spend your day.

It’s okay if you think about this sadness when you do celebrate. It’s okay to miss him when you think back to this day, because it’s probably going to colour your birthdays just as our grandfather’s passing colours mine. I’m sorry for whatever tears it brings you. I’m sorry that it will probably always be a reminder of this sad time, but you are loved, by the living around you, and the dead we’ve lost.

And that, weirdly, is a wholly different insight for me into this day you and I share. For me, not you. And I’m not really able to put it into words, and if I could, it’s not important. But I’ve been looking at the poppy on my coat, and thinking of you, of how proud I am of you, of how proud your grandfather was of you. Growing up has these sharp parts, but he is threaded into you.

May your birthday be heartfelt and your sorrows swiftly ease. And may you remember turning twenty as a good year, despite the pain of the start.

With all my love,

your chachen.

P.S. You started me drawing when you were very small and asked me to draw the very thing I was calling you without telling you. Of course, that time you said it looked like a bunny. So for your birthday, here:

(not bad for a phone-drawing, huh?)

*Edit*

No, I didn’t send her any of this. I never send her any of the letters I write here. They’re not for her directly. Mouse got her own email, with a much more focused bit of care. I’ll tell her about her other grandfather some other time.

May send her the mouse. Maybe.