Cathy LaPlante Day

So today is mom's birthday. She would have been 62 years young. In the last few days I've thought about how I wanted to manage myself through this day and here's how I'm approaching it: It's bad enough that Jan. 22 will forever be marked as the anniversary of the most horrible day of my life. I refusing to give up another precious day of the year to sadness.

So instead I'm trying to use the moments when I think of mom today to "bank" some positive memories of her. It's a weird instinct I've had a lot lately. Apparently it happens when you lose someone you loved. When you're hit with a memory you have this incredible urge to rerun, rerun and rerun it. Like memorization. Logic being there won't be any more memories, so you want to hold on to each all the more tightly.

Sigh.

So with that - here are some things that have occurred to me today:

She was great with birthdays. She loved buying adorable cakes when we were young. I remember one in particular that I loved -- a cake formed around a barbie doll standing straight up. She wore a big hoop skirt made of cake. With big frosting to make it look puffy and beautifully draped.

Also - there was a year we were really into Knight Rider so for my birthday mom rented a Trans Am and drove me and my friend Debbie around town and pretended it was KIT. I totally remember flying north on the 405 with the sunroof open, shouting to "KIT" to turbo boost as mom smiled and laughed.

My big Disneyland birthday. I am so impressed she did this now, actually. I think when I was in 7th grade (maybe 8th?) she took me and bunch of my girlfriends from school to Disneyland for the day and then we stayed over at the Disneyland hotel. We were hooting and hollering on the balcony of the hotel at one point - trying to attract attention from boys below. I'm sure she loved that. Somewhere there's an old style portrait of us in sailor suits with mom behind us. I have to try to find that picture.

And of course - for my 16th birthday mom surprised me by flying me to Vegas for the day and taught me to play blackjack. With real money! She winked at the dealer when he asked my age and told him, "Oh today's her birthday and she's 21. You can trust me on that. I was there!" On the flight back she told me to tell my father I’d gone to school, then we’d been shopping. Best birthday present ever.

So this is good. I'm smiling. And wondering if my husband will mind if I sneak Audrey to Vegas when she's 16. Hmmm...

If I think of more I'll post them as the day goes on.

5:19 pm - We just found a box with tons of Disney videos in the garage. So funny we should uncover them today. Mom used to give them to us as gifts over the years. She always worried when they advertised limited edition copies that by the time we had kids we wouldn't be able to get one.