Sixteen

For the four voices off-key and laughing singing happy birthday to the 16-year-old boy quarantined in the pouring down rain.

Even though we wrapped his gifts and I had made his favorite dinner and the best angel food cake I've ever made, there was a longing. There should have been two more voices there; one extremely loud and very out of tune, one soft and gentle, more in tune, with sweet voice softly crackling.

It hit me this morning, the deluge of emotion around his next older brother's 16th birthday celebration.

That day, I had taken all four boys to the pool. He had gotten in the water and swam, played basketball at the far end of the water. We listened to a song by the Decemberists in the car on a drive. I can remember that moment so clearly and often when I make that same turn at the light onto Miry Brook Road.

We came home and made raw vegan sushi. My oldest son made a sushi rolling mat and riced cauliflower, and a myriad of raw vegetable fillings. We sang to him and gave him presents. My youngest son, who was four at the time, gave him a card that farted. The preschooler laughed hysterically as the teenager opened it. I was filming it until the birthday boy caught me and I put the phone down. He never changed his "don't film me" policy.

It was a lovely birthday, but for the moment that I went to the front hallway to sob. My mother came and got me to return to the celebration and tell me that it wouldn't be his last one. I knew she was wrong. So did he. That was July. He made it to April the following year.

He was thrilled to get the hand made knife he had picked out in the hospital when he was having a terrible allergic reaction to the cancer medication three weeks before. My late husband had noticed him looking at it online and had purchased it for him.

What was missing that day was a pineapple upside-down cake. The one I had made for him every year since he was six. Not that year. The raw diet. I was going to save him.

The 16th birthday celebration two days ago would have been even more beautiful if only I could have fixed any of that.