ANOTHER BIRTHDAY

ANOTHER BIRTHDAY

My older son Steven Nathaniel Wolkoff would have been 40 years old today.

What can a parent say on the birthday of their dead child?

A living child asks for a birthday party. 

As they become older, you, as the parent, ask them what they want for their birthday. There’s dialogue. 

It’s tradition to remember your child's birthday, to not do so ignores that they lived.

But what exactly is a parent supposed to do on the birthday of their child when he is gone?

Not gone, as in out of town or at the beach, or out of the country. Gone as in, no longer alive.

A dead child doesn’t want. 

A dead son asks for nothing.

What does a mom or dad do?

Where’s the rule book for recognizing birthdays of a dead child?

Steven was born on the first day of Fall and died on the first day of Summer. 

There is something odd to me about the the significance of the equinox and solstice in his life and its parallel meaning to the Earth. 

If the autumnal equinox represents balance, then the summer solstice was most certainly the day we felt our world come to a deafening halt on the longest day of the year.

Steven lies dead in a grave because of the negligence and indifference of those who killed him, stole his life at the age of 30, and have tried to erase that he ever lived.

I mourn what was, what could of been, and what will never be.

You deserved so much better my son, it just wasn't meant to be. 

Love, Dad