Our lives on this earth

You know you're really, really an adult the first time you make your own birthday cake. Two days ago, between trips to my mom's medical appointments, I made my own birthday cake while Mom, who's too exhausted to stand up long enough to mix up the batter, came into the kitchen now and again to break an egg into the bowl, get out the vanilla, or just observe for a few moments. She was dismayed that she couldn't go get me a birthday card, either. But she had my brother go get me a gift card from a local Barnes & Noble. I promised myself I wouldn't buy a book on caregiving. I have a stack already from the Cancer Center library.
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Birthdays have always been treated the same in my family. When we were little, my mom--a 1970's health-freak Mom--would allow us to have any breakfast food we wanted, even if it was something wince-worthy like Coco Puffs or Fruit Loops. Now that we've been making our own breakfasts for God knows how long, she asks what kind of cake we want, and then she bakes it. About four years ago she made me a coconut cake covered with coconut frosting and embedded with shredded coconut. It was gorgeous--and snowed all over the table and rug when I blew out my candles. Yup, we still get candles, and the Happy Birthday Song, the whole bit, and she makes us dinner, too. And no having to do any housework, no getting your own anything. But now things are different, so I made my own cake and did the dishes after dinner--which my younger sister came over and made. She brought her two little girls, so I got plenty of auntie time. A family friend came over and my sister and I reminisced about how we used to have chickens, ducks and a goose named Gooseberry in the back yard, and how the goose was a little orphan my mom took in and raised up in her apron pocket. It used to swim in the kitchen sink until it fledged and was big enough to go outside. Until then, we just put newspapers down in the kitchen and the back hall and kept the door between the kitchen and the carpeted livingroom closed. Gooseberry followed Mom around as if she were a beacon. When he was old enough to go outside and live with the ducks and chickens, he'd swim around the little kiddie pool we had for the waterfowl. The ducks were named Mama and Papa duck, and Mama duck would climb up in Gooseberry's back and ride along while he did all the swimming.
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As I observed before, Mom really embraced the health craze of the '70s. There was no pop in our house, no sugar cereals, no chips--only on special occasions like birthdays or summer picnics. She made her own bread (wheat bread), ground her own hamburger, made strawberry jam from berries we grew in our yard, and pound cakes from eggs that came from the chickens we had out back. One day she noticed we had a pint of leftover cream, and she decided we should try making butter using the blender. It worked--we blended the cream until we saw butter gathering in the liquid. Then we stopped the blender, gathered the butter together, pressed out the liquid and washed it til the water ran clear, salted the butter and stashed it in the refrigerator. It's no wonder I love to make things, grow things, and cook--I had Martha Stewart for a mom. I remember my mother striding around doing her errands downtown. She'd praise me for being able to keep up; she liked to walk fast. These days her balance isn't so good and she's afraid she might fall. So she takes small steps, shuffling like an old person, carting along her oxygen cannister on its wheeled metal stand. I keep seeing an image of the young one she used to be, just behind or in front of her, and I yearn for that person from before as I strive to accept the person she is right now. A few days ago I entered my 46th year, and my mother was there to help light candles on the cake. Happy birthday to me.