21 - But, Who's Counting?

Today should have been Dan’s 21st birthday, a day to celebrate another passage into adulthood by being able, legally, to lift a pint of beer, a glass of wine or a flute of Champagne in that celebration. Tonight, if not very early this morning, Dan would have headed off with a few friends to mark that passage as it has been marked since society first drew a date-certain line in that section of the social sand.

Instead, I will take two, maybe four, bottles of Sapporo beer to a gravesite outside of town. Anyone who knew Danny will understand why the beer must be Sapporo, Asahi, Kirin, Suntory, Orion or Otaru. I will sit in the grass over that grave and drink one of those bottles, and at the same time pour a second bottle into the earth that now serves as the marker for Dan’s passage. Then, if either one of us is so inclined I will do the same with bottles three and four. I suspect we will be so inclined. After all, a guy only turns 21 once in a lifetime.

May 27 is the hardest, the worst of the “Danny days” on my calendar. It makes March 15 seem easy by comparison. March 15 will always denote the anniversary of a life ended. May 27 has become the antithesis of the anniversary of a life begun. Birthdays are for the living. There isn’t really any way, for me, to celebrate the birthday of a child who has died.

I know that life cannot be other than as it is this moment, and that accepting that reality is the path out of suffering. But, today, I badly want life to be other than as it is this moment; and so, today, I feel the suffering that comes in the absence of acceptance.

Tomorrow I will hear Dan invite me to return to the path.