Birthday blues
Today marks the passage of another year in my life, but the festive allure of birthdays seems distant, foreign even. This day, usually an occasion for celebration, carries a different weight this year, a melancholic shadow that dampens the celebratory spirit.
Last year, this day saw me in the sterile surroundings of a hospital, surrendering my gallbladder to the exigencies of an emergency removal. The memory, though healed over, leaves behind a faint scar on this date, a reminder of the fragility of our human existence.
This year, the universe seems to have cast a darker pall over the day. My thoughts, already preoccupied with my best friend’s battle, were met with more grief – my wife’s grandmother breathed her last today. The matriarch of our family, her loss creates an emptiness, a void that words fall short of encapsulating.
And so, amidst the silent prayers for my friend, I find myself mourning another cherished life. Grief, it appears, has an uncanny knack for timing, crashing uninvited onto days that should otherwise hold happier connotations.
Reflecting on the peculiar patterns of recent years, I can’t help but wonder if my birthday carries a jinx. An irrational thought, perhaps, but in the face of relentless adversities, it seems like a reasonable conclusion. Next year, maybe hibernation could be a wise choice, a retreat from the unseen forces that seem to have aligned against this day.
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