Mike, Part Two

On May 31, I wrote about my friend, and the son of my friend Julie, Mike. I was remembering Mike fondly and expressing how terribly he has been missed since his passing in April. One of the reasons I wrote about him at that particular time, I believe, was because I had been thinking that his birthday was coming up. I knew that everyone who loved him, but most especially his mother, would be missing him greatly on that day. I knew that I would miss him, and miss sending him a goofy text to wish him a happy day.

After I published my blog post, it occurred to me that my cell phone would be giving me a reminder of his birthday the next week. My phone is not a smart phone. I like to refer to it as a phone of average intelligence. I've had it for more than four years, and it still fills my needs, especially since I have a tablet. My average-intelligence phone will give me a reminder of a birthday two days before it happens. This makes sense; if I should decide to mail a card (yeah, right, it would get in the mail about six months later!) or do something special, I have a couple of days to get things in order.

So after I had written the post, I decided to delete Mikey's birthday from my phone's calendar. I knew I wouldn't forget his birthday - D-Day, June 6th, is not that forgettable, after all. But I was worried that getting the reminder would make me even sadder than the date rolling around on the calendar. So I picked up the phone after the tears from writing about Mike had subsided a bit, and deleted his birthday from my phone. I'm one of those people who tends to double-check things like this. When I opened the calendar on the phone, I was certain that the birthday was erased.

Tuesday morning, June 4th, I was awakened by my cell phone. "Who in the world is calling me so stinking early?" I growled. I picked up my phone and the screen said that I had a calendar reminder. I could feel my breathing speed up as I saw that it was a reminder for Mike's birthday. I was irritated that I had gotten it screwed up - obviously, I hadn't completed the deletion of his birthday when I did it a few days before. "Well," I thought, "I'll just make sure it doesn't happen again next year." I opened the calendar on my cell phone to make the deletion. And found that Mike's birthday was no longer in the phone.

I chuckled and said aloud, "Okay, Mike, I get the joke. I wasn't going to forget your birthday, you knucklehead!" Interpret this happening however you wish. But the way I reacted to it when it happened makes me happy. I felt like Mike was reaching out to me from wherever he is, saying that everything's all right. It fits in with his sense of humor, too. Thanks for keeping me smiling, Mike!