Your father died on his birthday. He walked around the truck to open your sister's door and as the hinge popped out he slumped over into her lap and was gone. It was also your parents' wedding anniversary, though by that point your dad already kept a dark, bare-bulb hung bachelor's apartment in the second floor of his furniture store. It's hardly surprising that the early Spring was something best ignored and unrecognized (though any references to such things were always left in the last moments before bed - between "g'night" and your bow-legged walk down the hall to your room). So all day I thought of you, but this year I wondered if all of this had an influence on your conversion, your rejection of all holidays and birthdays. Maybe the entire process is just a way for you to be given official support for leaving buried this one day of each year.