Birthdays
My birthday is coming up. Typically, I don’t celebrate my birthday. I haven’t for a long time.
Turning from twelve to thirteen, Katie said I had to be her boyfriend.
Turning from thirteen to fourteen, Katie hung herself from the swingset her father built for her older sisters.
Ten days after my birthday this year, it will be forty-nine years since Katie died. We hadn’t spoken in weeks. I assumed that I somehow had screwed up my first boy-girl relationship, but I didn’t know how. A week later, my mother told me that my little friend was dead.
If you’ve read my work, you know that suicide has been an overwhelming theme in my life. Just tonight, my sister and I discussed how many of our closest tried it, and how many succeeded.
Little Bird is a far better writer than I am. She’s devoted her writer’s voice to the discussion of Mental Health, and Suicide in particular, which honestly amazes me. Our lives have been so similar, but she’s handled it much better than I have.
On June 27, the Week after my Birthday, Little Bird is having a Zoom meeting to discuss suicide among advocates, survivors, and writers.
Please click the link below to sign up.
Though Mary B has known the story of what happened to Katie for over a year now, she had no idea what the date was. Her Zoom call is a day after the anniversary of Katie’s death.
