Happy Birthday, sort of

May 18 approaches. Wayne’s birthday. He would be 69.

When Wayne and I were brand new together and I learned that his birthday was May 18, I likely thought he and I were meant to be together. May 18 is also my brother Sterling’s birthday, the brother I idolized in my childhood. After Wayne and I married and attended BYU, my sister Lucile, also there with us, met and married Eric Eastman, whose birthday is May 18. I have always liked that. I don’t know if she idolized Sterling; I don’t know if Eric’s birthday being the same as Sterling’s and Wayne's pleased her as it did me; I don't know if it mattered at all.

Whatever.

The day approaches, next Sunday, in fact, and I shall spend it in church. Perhaps in the early morning, if my allergies are controlled, I’ll go to the cemetery. Not really a place of celebration for us Schiess people, but I can check on things, see that the grave is still cared for, the stone clean. There isn't much more I can do. Going to the cemetery is not something I do for him, not something I do for me. No doubt that is why I don't go often. I don't need to be there to think of him. Know what I mean?

For instance, yesterday, as I was blowing my nose . . . again, I remembered that Wayne used to say there ought to be some way to use all the mucus my body produces, some way to make a profit from it, plentiful as it was. Maybe mortar for bricks. I told him I didn't think it would sell.