August 23rd
By Sam Perwin
Today is August 23rd, 2016. It is my father's 68th birthday, and my parents' 46th wedding anniversary. It was always a cause for celebration in my family, for obvious reasons. As I've written before, my father was never one to celebrate birthdays because he always thought their universality made them, by definition, not a special occasion. He was always more concerned with celebrating hard-earned achievements instead of arbitrary dates on which we were born. I'm sure it came as a great relief to him when he could couple his birthday with his anniversary - something he always wanted to celebrate. This year, the second birthday/anniversary he'll have to spend without his wife, he planned a yearly trip our west to live out his City Slicker dreams on a cattle drive. Yes, my father the lawyer is a cowboy. He's been doing this for 20 years.
Dad in his natural habitat...really....
I'll keep this post relatively short, as it's not intended to be another lament of a special day without my Mom - although, I'm sure it's a difficult day for my father. Rather, I wanted to reflect on the meaning of particular dates in our lives and how they become special. When my father talked about planning his wedding, they wanted a time in the summer and that weekend was the best one for everyone, so he offered up his birthday as a sacrifice. When planning my wedding, my husband was dead-set on May in upstate New York, and our venue had exactly one date free in 2016: May 14th. That date is now engraved on the inside of our wedding rings, but it just as easily could have been another date. These dates become days we remember and celebrate. They have meaning in our lives, and yet they are decided for us by the fate.
This is a classic example of burying the lead, but as I posted on Facebook, my Grandfather died last week, on August 17th. There's another post in me on his legacy and influence on my entire family, but that is not this one. He was born on October 8th (a Libra, like me - I was born September 28th). My mother died on May 26th. She was born on June 26th. These dates bookend their lives, and yet they are also arbitrary - decided by no one, remembered forever by those of us who knew them. Millions of people were also born and died on these very days, so millions more will remember them for same reasons I will, and all of those who knew the ones they loved and lost will. I don't want this post to sound nihilistic, but so much of what I'm coming to terms with about death is how random it truly is. Of course, you value life, you keep yourself healthy, you try to be a good person. But ultimately, as Hamilton reminds us, "You have no control who lives, who dies, who tells your story." Nor do you control the day it begins and ends. Best then to just enjoy the ride while it lasts.
SAM PERWIN Actor. Singer. Writer. Tall. www.samperwin.com
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