If you’ve met me in the past 15 years or so you know that birthdays are a thing for me. It was not always the case. As a child Bonnie in her never ending quest for three more cents decided when I was 5 or 6 or so that our religion no longer called for the celebration of birthdays. By the time I was 8 and my cousin Crystal came along, I gave my first side eye, when she got to celebrate a birthday and allegedly we were the same religion.

As an adult, who eventually became a mother, I better understand some of the choices Bonnie made back then. I also know Bonnie and some of that shit was just her being an asshole. I’ve you’ve met the asshole version of me….I get it from my momma.

I got conditioned as a child to treat my birthday as any other day. Then Clyde took up residence in my uterus. His existence was a birth for me as well. It was the infancy of the version of me most of you now know. Birthdays became important to me then. It was a celebration of new life literally and figuratively. Clyde’s first two birthdays were low key. There was cake and party but it was intimate. I celebrated because I was now a mother of an amazing tiny human being but I was also me, who realized this kid is not gonna remember what we did his first 2 years so there was no need to take out a mortgage to throw a party.

His Autism diagnosis changed my perspective some. I’d pictured bigger parties as he got older, surrounded by the friends he’d have that I wasn’t able to manage to have at his age. Autism said no though. I ended up with a child who didn’t give a damn about his birthday, it was just any old other day. We still partied though.

His sensory issues didn’t lend to the things i had in my vizion, but we still partied. We had a few rituals we did, one of which was a good morning song. He got a special good morning song on his birthday. I’m proud of what I was able to give him in the time we had together under the same roof. There was never a day he didn’t feel loved, or special. He would give us his patented Clyde side at all the fuss we made about his birthday but I would also catch him smiling. He’s my kid in every aspect.

He’s 19 now, and his birthdays don’t get his special song from me as he wakes up. We both miss that. We both miss a lot of things. Overall be are both improving and thriving though. “Hi mom” is a regular thing now. His coordination #s are improving at an exponential rate. They are finally seeing the child I’ve always explained was there, who not unlike his momma, can not be made to do anything he is not willing to do. It’s the structure and the fact they are not me which propelled this progress though. Since they don’t speak Clyde he’s had to adapt [some]. I say some because he’s still the kid who walks into he room and runs shit. I mean in theory he gets that from me too, but when I see him do it I don’t think its something I could do.

He’s performing better in a world he will have to live in once I am no longer here, and being honest…..that wasn’t likely to happen under my roof. They are preparing him for life without me which is inevitable even if it started way too soon.

He doesn’t look like this anymore but this is still my favorite photo of him.

I love you munchkin. Always