i have never celebrated someone for their last birthday before. buying gifts felt difficult and irrelevant. the door creaked as i entered their condo, it seemed dark inside, but that was mostly just the gray rainy Edmonds sky. I rounded the corner and saw her dressed in white sitting up in her wheelchair. Recently I find that every time I am writing about my days with mom I always talk about entering their place. I think it is because it is a crossing over into this sacred space. Everything up unto that moment - from the news on NPR to the mad morning dash at my house getting Hao ready for school and changing diapers and having morning snuggles by the tree - feels like a different planet compared to the moments that take place in their condo. The scene is not familiar, it is not one I had ever pictured in my mind before and yet each day I arrive, I breath in deeply and then try to face head on the images and needs in this holy space.

On her birthday, as on many days, I am taken with the beauty of her face. It's my mother, her familiar knowing eyes. Her appearance has changed so much, with her skin wrinkling in new patches on her face and neck, and a mouth that used to utter such significant adoring and wise words is no longer moving, an arm dangling by her side no longer of any use, and gray spattering of hair that is short with a few bald spots covering her head. Still to me, sometimes I walk in and I think, oh mom, you are so beautiful.

We spend a great deal of our time together staring with few words. How unfamiliar those times are and yet how special to know so fully our hearts for one another without words. Her beautiful hands, all that they have held and done, their labor has been significant, and I hold them to let her know that I am there. I always pictured that I would be reading to her from a book or telling her stories, but in the last week, I have learned the stories are too frustrating, she interrupts that she has no idea what i am saying, and that she isn't sure who i am talking about in my story. I know she understands a great deal, but can only take in short stories right now and remembers most people by face only, not by name.

I was trying to tell her, for example, that Hannah came home from school on Friday and had checked out a baking book from the library. It is a bit unusual for Hannah to want to bake, but she said, "mom, I was thinking that if we have SueSue's birthday party this weekend, we need to make her a cake, because I am thinking if it is just up to Ba, he will probably just serve chunks of ice cream or something!" I told the story and laughed and looked up at her face and she said, "who is Hannah again?"

Yet, remarkably, when she laid eyes on Hannah tonight, her first words were, "you are important." All of the above is true, if Ba was in charge of the birthday we would indeed be eating ice cream and for sure, to SuSu, Hannah is so very important, her first grandaughter, one we prayed to arrive for many years.

I find myself wishing I had energy at the end of the day to come home and learn more about our brains. What is next to what in there? Where is this tumor going, how is it changing her so much in these ways, what must this all feel like to her, is there any predictability of what will go next? I have no idea and keep telling myself maybe next year I'll be the researcher and find more peace in the anatomy of it all. For now, I cross the line and beg God for whatever I can muster for the day. I lie a bit when I look her in the eyes and tell her, everything is okay, you are safe, we are here, and I can move you from the bed to the chair to the potty, no problem, when inside my body, I can be quite unsure.

This birthday has nothing to do with cake or presents or really much of the normal celebratory affairs, I couldn't even bring my whole family with me because the noise would be too much. It was just my dad, my brother, my aunt and me taking turns holding her hand, brining her water, and doing anything helpful for her. At the end, we didn't blow out candles and make any wishes, we sobbed our way through a prayer of gratitude for how we recognize God's writing all over the story of her life. How magnificent and redeeming and cruel and glorious her days have been. Happy 67th Birthday mom!