Last Friday, Jim and I loaded up his car for a trip to West Virginia.\u00a0 There was a surprise birthday party planned for his aunt on Saturday and we planned to spend the night at a hotel beforehand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We got a little later start than we wanted and were doing okay until we came upon the exit that we would have normally taken to go to his mom\u2019s house.\u00a0 It was too much and too soon and we pulled over to take a minute – and I took over driving. We debated on just calling it and canceling the trip, but stuck it out and eventually stopped for dinner at Cracker Barrel.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jim took over driving again and decided to take \u201cthe back roads\u201d the rest of the way.\u00a0 Now, the back road in WV are not like the back roads elsewhere. There were hairpin turns in the dark, washed out roads, and dozens of deer.\u00a0 Along with a fox, an opossum, a fox, several feral cats – and Jim thinks he saw a bear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We made it to the hotel, got checked in, and crashed.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The next morning was a crowded breakfast and more back roads to finally locate the party location.\u00a0 And somehow, in the age of phones and Facebook, they managed to surprise Jim\u2019s aunt. Once she realized what was going on – and who we all were – she started crying in joy and surprise.\u00a0 She spent the rest of the party on Cloud 9 and I think everyone had a good time. I made her some origami earrings and Jim painted some paper butterflies for her – which she loved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was a good party and I spent the clean-up time afterwards entertaining the kids with some high-speed paper folding.\u00a0 We all have our roles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then it was time for the 4 hour drive back.\u00a0 And while I\u2019m glad we went and we had a good time, it was still rough on Jim.\u00a0 His mom should have been there too and she would have loved it.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We got home safely and later that evening I went on Facebook for a minute\u00a0 – and saw a post from Jeff\u2019s brother the day before. Just a small note about how it would have been Jeff\u2019s birthday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And I had…forgotten.\u00a0 I\u2019ve never been good at remembering birthdays – even sometimes my own – and when Jeff was alive, I would remember the general time period and have to carefully figure out the date from clues every year.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But I\u2019d forgotten entirely this time.\u00a0 The date of his death? That I remember. But not his birthday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I felt terrible about that for a while and tried to figure out some way to respond to the post without sounding like an asshole or idiot – and couldn\u2019t come up with anything.\u00a0 So, I let that post go past – as I\u2019d let his birthday go past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s nothing to be done about that.\u00a0 No way to undo any of that – time is closed off behind us. And I have a package of regrets – comfortable in their own persistence\u00a0 – that will linger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nothing to be done, but\u2026 I had forgotten.\u00a0 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last Friday, Jim and I loaded up his car for a trip to West Virginia.\u00a0 There was a surprise birthday party planned for his aunt on Saturday and we planned to spend the night at a hotel beforehand. We got a little later start than we wanted and were doing okay until we came upon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_bluesky_dont_syndicate":"","_bluesky_syndication_accounts":"","_bluesky_syndication_text":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2513"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2513\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2514,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2513\/revisions\/2514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}