Happy birthday to her

Welp…
It’s that time of year. The time of year when the readership of Pen City Current gets to be my unwitting therapist.
I was scrolling through Facebook to make sure our most recent stuff was posted and came across Tom Walljasper’s self-proclaimed Tell Your Kids You Love Them day.
It should be a national mandate on Oct. 11.
But it also reminds me that today I should be celebrating Kelsey’s birthday.
I will celebrate it. I do every year. Just me in the kitchen with a cake. She loved cake. I’m a pie guy, but on Oct. 13, I’m a cake dad.
I sing Happy Birthday to her, and I’m sure she’s covering her ears as she should. When I sing Happy Birthday, I sing very quietly because NO ONE should hear that. It’s dad and daughter time. Last year, I got the cake, sang, cut two pieces and set one aside. Ate mine. Looked at the other piece, got very angry very fast and packed a bag.
Hit the road and didn’t know where I was headed. Right on cue a good friend called and asked what I was doing that day. It was a Saturday last year. Not sure if he was bored or just checking in on me. Either way he made sure I wasn’t alone that day. You don’t forget moments like that.
I know this year will be the same as the emotions are already creeping in.
We’re closing in on five years of her not eating Subway with bacon, black olives, light mayo, shredded cheese, extra pickles, and a little lettuce to make her mom happy. ‘Blech’. But guess what I’m eating on Sunday, along with some cake? It’s been five years since I’ve eaten undercooked beef stroganoff. I miss that concoction that always had me digging through the bowl and fork flecking before ingesting.
I miss getting my ass handed to me in chess, the road trips to Cheddar's, and the extra long hugs on the curbs of Daum and Catlett in Iowa City. Then the sad, but proud ride back down 218. Now they’re just sad.  Every time I leave that town I get a palpable feeling that I’m leaving her there again, and again, and again.
I had an emotional conversation with her mom the other night and told her that I’m at a point, thanks to some really good conversations with Mike Maher, that I can experience good memories and even smile a little. When you lose a child you fight that joy because in your mind and your heart you feel like you’re making a decision to let them go. And you never want to let them go. So you literally fight to keep the pain. It’s the connection that you need. It’s like when you hear in movies or stories that people who are severely injured consider the pain an indication they are going to survive. It’s kinda like that.
We get there in different times. Some people it takes years, maybe even lifetimes. But I laid in bed and watched Draft Day last weekend and just imagined that girl snuggled up next to me like she used to do when she was really sick five years ago. It was the only way she could go to sleep.
I smiled and breathed deeply as I imagined her cool skin next to mine and her head laying gently on my bicep. I can still see her arms folded across her chest and a weighted blanket over her legs as she fell quietly asleep on her side - facing me.
I welcomed the sadness on a quiet Saturday morning. It’s a progression of grief and it’s acceptable. The visceral anger and hatred for a doctor who said six hours before Kelsey died that she probably wasn’t in the right place – still exists.  The frustration of other physicians who wouldn’t stand up – still exists. The disgust in attorneys who wouldn’t hold this woman accountable – still exists.
But the love that her mother and I have for her and the memories we created as a family – still exist. And the daughter that lives in New York City who is now an only child, but will never be an only child, still exists. She makes me laugh every single day at one point or another and stands firmly beside me even though I know her legs shake as hard as mine.
And she does it 16 hours away from her dad with 8.3 million people around her. Courageous.
I find myself frequently asking friends about their kids. I’m not sure if I’m just making conversation or what. Doesn’t matter. Those kids are great kids and I love hearing the stories. The daughter of the guy who made sure I wasn’t alone last year, gave me a hug last Friday in Keokuk.
Those moments still exist.
Is it tough? Yeah. It’s tough for a lot of people who I’ve talked with that have lost children. I guess what I’m saying, if I’m saying anything all, is that in my mind anyway, it’s okay to remember them in a framework of joy. The desolation is always there lingering in the background, but faith in anything says we have to celebrate things, too – like birthdays, movies. Memories.
As a public service announcement, the groundbreaking for the new Meller Family Health Center – Lee County Health Department/EMS bay is set for Monday, Oct. 14 at 1 p.m. It’s been a three-year effort and decades long dream – But that’s Beside the Point.
Chuck Vandenberg is editor and co-owner of Pen City Current and can be reached at  Charles.V@PenCityCurrent.com.