(no subject)

[ksmith]

It would have been a birthday. Mom would have been 89 today.

When she was 60 or 61, she visited my aunt in Huntington LI. Aunt had a favorite psychic, and since Mom was a believer, they arranged a visit. Among other things, this psychic told Mom that she would live to the age of 83.

Mom spent the rest of her life counting down. Birthdays became things to avoid rather than celebrate, and as the years went on, it got worse. We had a family tradition where the person whose birthday it was inserted the knife in the cake and the person whose birthday came next took it out. Mom made a face whenever it came to her to take out the knife. When she entered her 70s, she started saying things like "thirteen more years." Twelve. Ten.

I wished a lot of unhappy things on that psychic over the years. Not very nice of me. Oh well.

As fate would have it, Mom's 84th fell the month after Dad died, so on top of the grief came the countdown. But the day came and went, and the next morning my 84 year old mother awoke and maybe realized that she had worried over nothing for over 20 years. In any case, she lived three and a half years longer than Anna said she would. Screw you, Anna.

Vodka and orange juice was Mom's favorite drink. I hope she's somewhere with her sisters, enjoying a drink and laughing.

Happy Birthday, Mom.

Comments

[excessor.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of people live like this. Another course of action would be for you to have prepaid a psychic to tell her she'd live to 112, and then convinced her to go see a psychic that you'd “heard wonderful things about.” Fighting fire with fire, and all that.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I wish I had thought of that. I tried bringing up all the things that psychics had told her that hadn't come to pass, but it didn't help.

She only wanted reassurance that things would go well. That I'd have a good life. So much for that.