Musings on My Mother’s 98th Birthday

Saturday, October 17, 2026 – Orlando, Florida

“I can pinpoint that as the single happiest moment of my life, because I realized then that Mom would always have my back. It made me feel giant. I raced back down the concrete ramp, faster than I ever had before, so fast I should have fallen, but I didn’t fall, because Mom was in the world.”
― Maria Semple, Where’d You Go, Bernadette

Today is my mother’s 98th birthday. It’s the 11th “return of the day” since her death on July 19, 2015, and the 10th one I’ve observed away from my hometown of Miami, where her ashes are interred in the same Catholic cemetery where my father was buried in 1965.

I’m not a praying man, and I’m not into the whole “heavenly birthday” vibe. But among the many regrets I have about leaving Miami, not being able to visit my parents’ final resting place at Our Lady of Mercy Catholic Cemetery is perhaps the biggest.

The one time I went there, in October 2015, I still lived in the townhouse my mom had bequeathed to me, much to my older half-sister’s chagrin. The house is only a nine-minute drive from the cemetery, and luckily, I knew a woman named Karen who didn’t mind taking me there so I could pay my respects to both of my parents after their birthdays. Dad’s birthday is October 4; Mom’s, of course, is October 17.

I didn’t ask Karen to take me on the 17th because I didn’t want to inadvertently run into my older half-sister, Vicky.

My relationship with her had always been strained. Not so much when I was a kid, although even then I found her difficult and temperamental during the three times she lived with us in Bogotá and Miami. Back then, most of the drama was between mother and daughter. Later, though, I learned that my relationship with Mom irritated Vicky, and by the time I was in my early twenties and in college, whatever bond my sister and I had was deteriorating. Eventually, it broke altogether.

I’m not going to delve into why I went “no contact” with my sister shortly before that first birthday without Mom. All you need to know is that I didn’t want to walk into Our Lady of Mercy’s mausoleum and unexpectedly cross paths with the woman who had made caregiving for our mother more difficult and who, by then, seemed to feel nothing but antipathy toward me.

I will tell you, though, that on the eve of that first birthday after Mom’s death, I went to visit her cremated remains. She had been gone for just under three months.

Karen and her husband stood respectfully several feet away while I sadly gazed at the tiny niche where Mom’s urn rested. I didn’t pray. I didn’t say, “Happy birthday, Mom.” I simply tried to convey, silently, my love and gratitude to the memory of the woman who had given birth to me 52 years before.

I didn’t linger.

I was fairly sure Vicky had been there the day before and was probably preparing for a trip to Colombia to be with our cousins in Bogotá. Still, because she was so possessive when it came to Mom and had always been weird about death and grieving, I couldn’t rule out a surprise visit. I didn’t want to see my half-sister.

So I asked Karen and her husband to go with me to Lot F-34, where my dad is buried, and I paid my respects to him before we returned to what was still, legally, my mom’s estate’s house.

By then, I’d been at the cemetery for about an hour. The first 20 minutes or so had been spent in the office, simply trying to find out where my parents were interred.

I planned to go back to Our Lady of Mercy once a year after that.

Life, however, had other plans.

A few twists and turns took me first to the Tampa Bay area in 2016, then to New Hampshire at the end of 2023, then briefly back to Miami, and eventually to Orlando.

Ah, well. The best-laid plans of mice and men….

I wish I could be at Our Lady of Mercy in October. I wish I could stand in front of that tiny niche again, if only for a few minutes. I wouldn’t pray, and I still wouldn’t wish Mom a “heavenly birthday.” That wouldn’t be me.

Instead, I can remember her. I can miss her. And I can be grateful that for the first 52 years of my life, Mom was in the world.