Growing up, my father and sister celebrated birthdays that were one day apart.  Every year, my dad would make a special cake.  The ingredients included yellow cake mix, apricot preserves and  Cointreau, with real whipped cream as the icing.  It was scrumptious! This was my family’s birthday tradition.  (I don’t remember any special treats for my birthday or mom’s.  What was up with that?)

On November 9th, 2000, my husband celebrated his 50th birthday.  He had been battling cancer for over two years, and was pretty much confined to bed.  I wanted to do something unique and special to honor his day.  He owned a huge CD collection, which included many artists from the 50’s and 60’s.  Suddenly, I remembered The Beatles song, “Birthday” (sing along, you know the words,  “They say it’s your birthday.”)

I secretly loaded the CD into the CD player, which was located just outside the master bedroom.  I turned the volume up real loud and hit PLAY!  My husband smiled as my son and I sang and danced to the music.  A family tradition was born.

We play this famous Beatles song first thing on each family member’s big day (the dog is included, too).  We have even played it on November 9th, despite the fact that my husband is no longer here on earth.  I know that he can see us singing and dancing in his honor.

In August of 2005, my then seven-year old son was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes, formerly known as Juvenile Diabetes.  Type 1 Diabetes is an autoimmune disease in which, for some unknown reason, the body attacks itself.  In the case of Type 1 Diabetes, the pancreas is attacked and its insulin-producing beta cells are destroyed.  The body can no longer produce insulin, a hormone necessary to convert sugar (glucose), starches and other food into energy necessary for life.

Mark’s diagnosis was the third serious event to strike our family.  (I guess bad things really do happen in three’s.)  In 2001, when Mark was just three years old, his father died from a  rare form of cancer.   In 2003, as Mark was preparing to enter Kindergarten,  I was diagnosed with and successfully battled  Acute Myelogenous Leukemia (AML).  Now,  we were faced with a chronic, life-threatening, currently incurable disease, and this time it was happening to my child.  This is the event that knocked me to my knees and it took months for me to stand up again and move forward.

My son, on the other hand, took the diagnosis fairly well.  We spent three days inpatient at Children’s Hospital where we both had to learn how to do finger sticks to check blood sugar, calculate an insulin dosage based on the number of carbohydrates eaten in a meal and give insulin injections.  We met with doctors, nurse practioners, a dietician, and a social worker.    It was overwhelming, a real case of TMI-too much information.  Mark took it all in stride and was content to play video games and visit with friends and family who stopped by.  As tragic as it is for a child to be diagnosed with any disease, they do seem to adjust and get on with their lives.

I did not understand the full meaning of my son’s acceptance of this disease until last summer.  We were driving home one afternoon and out of the blue Mark asked me,  “If you could have one wish, what would it be?”  I am ashamed to admit that for just a couple of seconds, my mind wandered to material things-a new car,  bigger house, new shoes.  Thankfully, I quickly came back to my senses and replied, “If I could have just one wish, I would want a cure for Type 1 Diabetes today.”  Without any hesitation,  Mark instantly replied, “Mom, you don’t want a cure for Type 1 Diabetes.  You want a cure for cancer. It kills far more people.”  I was speechless and tears began to well in my eyes. This was further confirmation for me that I am raising and living with an old soul.

My son is currently eleven years old.  He endured more in the first seven years of his life than many people do in a lifetime.  I believe that he is an old soul who has come here in this lifetime for accelerated growth and as a teacher to other, newer souls.  I am his devoted student and have a front row seat in his classroom everyday.

****I wrote this piece in February of 2004.  My son lost his father to cancer when he was just three years old.  This is written in his voice.

It came knocking on our door one sweltering August day.  I wish that he had never answered the door.  I was just six months old, his first child, a son.  There would be so many things for us to do together.  We would walk hand in hand to the park, where I would beg him to push me on the swing “just one more time.”  We would go to McDonald’s and eat french fries and drink chocolate milk shakes, eschewing the hamburgers-he for religious reasons, me because mom is a vegetarian.

In the summertime, we would play a game of catch in the backyard, or watch the pros play at the stadium downtown.  We would take a family vacation to the place where Mickey lives, or travel east to the state of his birth.  We would visit Brooklyn, Long Island and take in the sights and sounds of the city that never sleeps.  In the wintertime, we would dare to take on the white, icy hills on our two-man sled.  We would shriek as we raced to the bottom, snow spraying our faces.  Afterwards, I would help him shovel the driveway, and then together we would build a man of snow.

In the evenings and on weekends, we would scour his bottomless CD collection and make our selections.  We would turn up the stereo real loud and sing and dance to the music of his youth-Chuck Berry, Elvis and The Beatles. He would know all of the words.  (I’ve been told that he could have been a winning contestant on Name That Tune, if such a show had existed in the late 1990’s.)  At bedtime, he would read to me, sharing his passion for the printed word.  In the early years, we would read Winnie-the-Pooh and Dr. Seuss and later, The Hardy Boys and Harry Potter.

He would teach me how to ride a bike, chasing after me down the street yelling, “Keep on pedaling.”  We would watch TV together-The Discovery channel, Animal Planet and ESPN-lying like lumps on the sofa, feet-to-feet.  We would experience “my firsts” together-first day of school, first visit from the tooth fairy, first goal at soccer, first kiss.  He would be proud of me in my cap and gown.  I would be valedictorian, sharing with everyone the values he instilled in me.  I would dedicate my speech to him.  And there would be more experiences to share-my college years, my post-graduate employment, my wedding, his grandchildren.  We would be closer than he and his father had been.  For him, that would be his most fulfilling achievement as a parent.

Sadly, this was not to be.  If only he had pretended that he hadn’t heard the knock, you know how you do when someone is selling something you don’t want.  If only he hadn’t opened the door and unknowingly let cancer in.  We would have had a lifetime together, instead of just one thousand, three hundred and thirteen days.