When we arrived at Onota lake for my birthday party, Jackie took all of the food out of the car first. Before going to the lake we had stopped at our local Big Y grocery store to pick up everything for the party. Jeff had gone in with her and I had waited in the car. They came back out with a big huge vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream frosting. In blue lettering, it said “Happy Birthday Becca and Jeff” on it, and then it had a bunch of blue and green flowers swirling the edges of it, I thought it looked beautiful.
Jeff had said he would hold it in the backseat so that nothing would happen to it. I had let Jeff pick out the type of cake we got because I couldn’t eat it anyway. They had also picked up a fruit plate with strawberry dip, a veggie plate with ranch dip, that I knew Jackie had picked out not Jeff. Doritos and cool ranch dip, which I immediately knew Jeff had picked out, some regular potato chips, which I also figured Jeff was behind, barbecue potato chips, tortilla chips with medium salsa that I knew Jackie had picked out. She loved anything spicy. For drinks, we had orange Hawaiian punch in a big huge jug, cans of different kinds of diet and regular soda, water bottles, and a cooler full of ice. Then there were disposable utensils, straws, and candles.
Jackie had also handed me a big cup filled with black iced coffee with no ice.
“It has 3 equal in it and 3 sweet n low, just how you like it,” she had told me. “Save it for when we have the cake so that you have something to enjoy while everyone is eating cake and snacks. We’re going to put a birthday candle in the area where the straw goes and light it for you so that you can make a wish and blow out a candle on your very own version of literal ‘coffee’ cake”.
“Thanks,” I had told her, smiling brightly. “That was such a nice touch.”
“I think about you,” she had said, smiling back at me. Then she had pulled out balloons filled with helium saying Happy Birthday and tied them to the handicapped accessible picnic tables she’d claimed and put out napkins and cups and plates that all said Happy Birthday on them.
When Jackie and Jeff had finished unloading the car of all the goodies, Jackie came back for me. She took my wheelchair out of the trunk and put it back together and then transferred me into it and wheeled me over to the picnic tables as slowly people began to show up.
First Jay arrived with his dog Bruno. Jackie introduced Jeff and me to the famous boyfriend that she could never stop gushing over. He seemed really sweet and shared with me that he had ulcerative colitis had frequent surgeries, hospitalizations, and doctor’s appointments, and had to watch what he ate and take injectable medicine. He said he could only imagine what I went through, but he could kind of understand. I felt a sense of camaraderie with him over this.
His dog Bruno was very affectionate as well and jumped all over me in the wheelchair.
“Get him off of her,” Jackie told him.
“It’s okay, she likes it,” Jay said.
“I do,” I told Jackie.
Then after I cuddled with Bruno a little bit, Jeff took him down to the lake to throw sticks in the water. Bruno would dash in, splash about in the water, grab the stick and return it to Jeff, sopping wet, panting, and excited with the fun game. Jay didn’t seem to mind at all.
Greg was next to arrive.
“Happy birthday guys,” he greeted us, giving me a gift card to Barnes and Nobles and Jeff and a gift card to Amazon. It’s kind of nice having a lawyer for a friend, they give the best presents on birthdays and holidays and always have money to spend on you for just “whatever presents”.
Eric, his very pregnant wife Kristi, and their baby daughter Faustina were the next guests to arrive. Eric brought a beautiful book about commentary on Jewish prayer and custom for Jeff because he knew that Jeff had been asking me a lot of questions about my religion. He also knew that Jeff had some learning disabilities, even though Jeff probably, if he had ever been tested, would have had an IQ in the genius range on the performance part of the IQ test, so he prefaced the gift by saying, “sometime when the two of you are just hanging out you can read this book together and you can learn more about the reasoning behind all of Becca’s customs and rituals that seem so crazy to you. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind reading this with you.”
Eric brought me a Mezuzah for my doorway which is a small, about two to two to three inch long, wrapped scroll in a beautiful case, that has the most important Jewish prayer in it, the Shema. Jewish people put a Mezuzah up in their doorways and kiss it each time they go through their doorways. Every Jewish household has at least one Mezuzah in it.
We waited and waited for Nan to arrive, and finally half an hour into the party a breathless, sweaty, limping Nan arrived with her foot in some sort of black boot and holding crutches under her arms.
“What happened?” I asked her.
“I was chasing the damn dog to get him back in the house and I tripped and fell on the porch step. They said that there’s a small hairline fracture. I had to go to urgent care. That’s why I’m so late.” Nan explained.
“That’s awful,” I told her. “Does it hurt a lot?”
Nan heaved the crutches in front of her and collapsed so heavily on the picnic table bench that I saw it bounce up slightly and move Jackie and Jay and jeff who were sitting there laughing, talking, and eating chips and dip.
“Yeah, it hurts like crazy, they gave me a Percocet while I was there and a prescription for four more Percocet, I just have to drop the script off at the pharmacy after the party, I wouldn’t miss the party for the world.” She smiled at Jeff and me.
I felt so touched that even a broken foot hadn’t stopped Nan from attending Jeff and my party.
Now that everyone was there, we all brought the cake out and uncovered it. Jackie put a candle in the area of the lid of my iced coffee that was supposed to hold a straw. She made sure it was secured well and then we lit the candles on the cake and the one in my coffee. Everyone sang happy birthday to Jeff and me. Even two-year-old Faustina. A warm happy feeling filled me along with the sunshine of the 85-degree July day.
“Make a wish on the candles and then blow out the candle,” Jackie said.
I screwed my eyes shut really tight as I thought hard to come up with the best possible wish.
“I hope that Jeff’s cancer never comes back and that I don’t get any sicker and that Jeff and I can become a couple and live together happily ever after for years and years of a happy and healthy marriage”
My wish surprised me, until then the thought of having a real relationship with jeff had never occurred to me. The thought of marrying Jeff had certainly never even gone on my radar screen. But that was the wish that popped into my head when I focused within me really hard and thought of my best possible wish, so that is what I wished for.
Trying to contain my shock, I opened my eyes blew out the candle, and let Jackie take the candle out of my straw holder hole and put a regular straw in so that I could take a few sips of my coffee. The rest of my party was a lot of fun, but I couldn’t stop thinking about my wish.
Everyone else ate cake and continued to snack on the party food. I drank my iced coffee and some of the sugar-free soda. My body couldn’t handle sugar, not even when I drained it out of my G tube. Some of the sugar would get immediately dissolved in my saliva and would cause severe diarrhea and nausea and vomiting, so I could only drink sugar-free drinks.
Once everyone was done with the snacks we went down to the water. I had Jay put my wheelchair really close to the water and then lift me forward so that I could put my feet in the cool stream of Onota Lake. It felt invigorating to be so close to nature. Then I got to stay close to the water and throw sticks into the water for Bruno (Jay’s dog) to run and fetch out way deep, and then bring back to me sopping wet and full of big puppy excitement.
After we were done playing at the side of the lake. Jackie, Eric, and Jeff took turns pushing me on the paved blacktop path around the lake to the dock where I went all the way out on the dock and felt like I was swaying back and forth on a real boat. The movement was so exciting for me. I loved watching the glassy beautiful lake from all different viewpoints. There were smears of sky blue, cerulean blue, azure blue, light emerald green flakes of leaves, pine green trees stretching tall into the sky declaring their imposing presence, maple trees with their hand-shaped leaves reaching out to greet you and wave to say ‘hi’, oak trees, and olive green shorter bushes intertwining in jade green, fern green, and sage green, interspersed with mud coming up on big slick rocky areas. A couple of times we stopped and I took pictures on my phone hoping to use them as inspiration for future art projects
Finally, we circled back to the handicapped accessible picnic tables, and Jeff and I finished opening the rest of our birthday presents. Jackie had gotten me a unicorn comforter and Jeff a blue-striped comforter. Nan had gotten me a brand new teddy bear, a pink unicorn throw blanket, and pink tea lights that ran on battery power. She got Jeff a t-shirt that said, “My shirt is brighter than your future. Jay had gotten me a new T-shirt that had a teddy bear on it with a unicorn horn. Jay got Jeff a new drone. I had already received the $50 gift card to Barnes and Noble from Greg and the mezuzah from Eric, Kristi, and Faustina.
When my party was drawing to a close and Jackie was loading me back into her car to go home, I thanked her profusely.
“You made our birthdays so special, I had such a great time,” I told her.
“I’m glad you had a good time,” she told me, “I had always wanted to do something like this for Lily (the woman she worked for before me that passed away).” She fingered her necklace with Lily’s fingerprint as she spoke. “I’m just glad that I got to do it for you.”
‘Well, I’m glad that, in Lily’s honor, Jeff and I both, had an amazing time.” I told her.
She smiled at me a slightly distant smile.
I wished she could have done the party just for me because she cared for me. But part of me knew that she really did care about me, and she had done it for me. She was just preoccupied right now with grief. I really did appreciate everything she had done, and as long as she knew that I was happy.
My thoughts traced back to my birthday wish I had made. Did I really want to marry Jeff? How could I want to marry Jeff? He was 41 and I was 26. Would it even be possible? What were his thoughts on the matter? Would I scare him out of being my friend if I told him I was romantically interested in him? What was the right thing to do? How did he feel about me? Was there any way to find out without potentially scaring him away?
There was so much to think about.