The Year of Firsts

The year of “firsts” is now over. The big “firsts”… first birthday, first Christmas, first summer without her, and some of the unexpected firsts, the ones that just keep coming, the ones that wear your soul down… the first time I didn’t set her place at the table for a family dinner, the first time I ventured out in public as the woman who had lost a child and the first time I answered “one” when asked how many children I have.

One of the big “firsts” is about to become a second. Next month we will celebrate Kirsten’s birthday without her for the second time. Last year we celebrated her birthday just over a month after her passing. It was as nice a party as it could be without her actually being there.

All of our family and friends were there, and all of Kirsten’s friends, even a couple of the Shippensburg friends. I baked a chocolate cake with chocolate icing and put a number 1 candle and a number 9 candle on it. I wanted to make the cake myself, it was a motherly duty I could still do for her. There were beautiful flower arrangements, so kindly sent to us for the occasion and Kirsten’s friends decorated the house with pink and blue streamers.


The food was from one of Kirsten’s  favorite places, Royal Bakery. There were two 5 foot subs and assorted pastries. When I picked up the food, I took a picture of the heart and initials that Kirsten had drawn on the wall behind one of the booths. Others had added notes to it since the accident. The new management has since painted over it.

After we ate, all of the people who had gotten a tattoo in Kirsten’s honor gathered outside for a picture. There were 12 of us. There are several other people with Kirsten tattoos that aren’t in the picture. When I’m afraid that her friends will one day forget her, I think of those tattoos.

We sang Happy Birthday and blew out the candles. That was when I lost it. I hid my face against Kenny’s shoulder and sobbed. Everything about this was just SO WRONG.

Then we went out back and released about 50 pink balloons with handwritten messages on them. They floated up toward a bright blue sky dotted with fluffy white clouds. Mine said, “Happy Birthday, Kiki. I love you, Mom :-) 


It was a perfect spring day and the sight of all those balloons drifting away from the people who had been holding them was very moving. As the balloons passed the treetops, escaping our grasps forever, I noticed Kirsten’s friend, Cami, start to cry.