No March Madness Anymore

I was perhaps programmed from early childhood to work for Hallmark Cards, which I did for 27 years. When I was growing up, my mother made a big deal of celebrating birthdays. She sent cards on every holiday and on innumerable birthdays of relatives and friends. She mailed several greeting cards a week, and almost always, they were Hallmark cards. She continued the tradition throughout most of her life.

My mother and her mother, 1933

As a child, I used to think March was a month for birthdays. My mother’s birthday was on March 4. Her whole family had March birthdays—her brother on the 1st, her mother on the 15th, and her father on the 22nd. Every time I turned around that month, she put another birthday card out for me to sign. Then my birthday followed in early April, so I grew up thinking spring was a season for celebration.

My mother and her father, 1933

My grandfather died when I was just ten, which meant one less birthday to celebrate. But the others in her family lasted until I was well into my forties or beyond. I wasn’t close to my uncle and never sent him a birthday card on my own as an adult. But I thought of him every March 1 until he died in 2011, and even after.

My grandmother, whom I called Nanny Winnie, lived until 2003 and died at age 95. That’s a lot of birthdays. I sent her a card every year, even after her dementia reached the point that she probably didn’t know whether I remembered or not. My mother remembered and lived near her mother, so my grandmother’s card was as much for my mother as for my grandmother. I still think of Nanny Winnie every March 15—the Ides of March. She would have been 111 this year, though making it to 95 was pretty darn good.

My mother and her brother, 1933

Only a few years after my grandmother died, my mother was also diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. She still knew her birthday, at least until she went into assisted living in 2013. I sent her cards until she died in 2014. My father made sure she saw them. She would have been 86 this month.

My mother with her parents and brother, circa 1961

Now, all four of my mother’s birth family members are gone. And no March birthdays have replaced them. No close relatives in my generation or in the following two generations have been born in March. I have friends born in March, but no relatives.

My father, a late April birthday, is also gone. I am the only birthday left in April, then none until mid-May, when another cluster of birthdays begins, and Mother’s Day to boot.

I buy greeting cards (still only Hallmark brand cards) right after Christmas for the January and February birthdays and for Valentine’s Day, then I don’t return to the card shop until near Easter when I buy for the May and June birthdays.

But March and April? No one remains to buy cards for. These months feel like a gaping hole. There are no celebrations, only remembrances.

Which family members do you mourn on their birthdays?