She would have turned 93,
were she alive.

Is it okay to say,
"Today my mother turns 93,"
or can one no longer say this,
when the body is gone?
In such cases,
there is nothing to turn 93.
A buried box of ashes?
Even that likely no longer exists–
just dirt, mold and dust.

I could say,
"In a cemetery
in a small town in Michigan,
there exists,
in a certain, identifiable spot,
beneath a foot of snow,
beneath the brown grass,
within the ground,
a cubic foot of earth,
seasoned with the remains
of my mother's cremains,
and,
in some sense,
that cubic foot of earth–
or portion thereof–
turned 93.

But the elements that compose the body–
hers, yours and mine–
are elements that existed
since time began,
and though,
93 years ago,
assembled into that being,
that I called "Mom,"
they actually existed
for millennium earlier.

That cubic foot of earth
turns 50,000 today,
or 2 million,
or several billion…

This makes 93 seems a bit arbitrary
and perhaps
irrelevant.

I'll just go back to
"Happy Birthday, Mom,"
or maybe wish her a simple,
"Happy."

Text and image © 2013 by Dirk deVries. All
rights reserved.