Today is the 7th of July and tomorrow will automatically be the 8th, on a Tuesday. Ever since we learnt how to read the calendar, we would look at the calendar and think it was amazing -close to magical, really- that if my birthday would fall on a Monday, yours would automatically fall on a Monday. And so in April we would start the countdown to our birthdays, separated by a mere month. The eve of our birthdays was more important than the birthday itself. We would be extremely giddy and excited because we thought the eve marked a gate pass to a new year, a different year. It was the youngest we would ever be, so as much as we would will it to be over already, we savoured every moment of it. Throughout the day we would constantly remind each other to be in our best behaviour. I would -or you would, depending on whose birthday we were celebrating- casually tell you, 'Look at me and memorise me, because come tomorrow, I will be a different person.'
The next day would come, as it always does, and apart from being one year older, nothing would have changed. We didn't have birthday parties, but we were aware that it was a special day. And in a way it was special; this is the day we were born.
2005 was bound to be a special year, come the end of it, we would be through with primary school, and we were excited. We were growing up. And we knew there was a possibility that we would go our separate ways when we went to high school, so to eliminate this possibility, we applied to the same schools and hoped, by some miracle, we would go to the same school.
It was on a Friday, in March. You were not feeling well, you slept the whole lunch hour and when we were on our way home later that afternoon, you promised to see me on Monday. I did see you that Monday as promised, but not the way I had expected, I saw you lying lifeless in your coffin. Your cousin had come to tell me, and a few others, that you had passed on during the weekend and we went for the burial.
It's 9 years later, and I don't remember the exact date you passed on. I have tried so hard to remember but I can't. I have read psychological texts on how the human memory works, and maybe I have repressed the date you left me. But your birthday has stayed in my memory. Every 7th and 8th of July finds me going through all the times we shared. My birthday, however, has become just another day. I wonder if maybe you would frown at how indifferent I have become towards birthdays. I also wonder if you would approve of the young woman I have become. I wonder what type of woman you would have become. I wonder if we would still be good friends, inseparable as it were. I wonder if I would be more open with you, because the people I call friends claim that I am very private, you knew my secrets though; the childhood secrets, but secrets all the same.
You taught me more about resilience than life has taught me. You went through so much at a young age; I don't think I ever was or ever will be half as strong as you were. Most importantly, you taught me that life is short, any day could be the last, and whatever age one is, that age is still a viable, die-able age.
The title of this post is from the song Memories by Within Temptation.
