4AM FIRST BIRTHDAY WITHOUT YOU

It’s four in the morning.
This is the first time your birthday showed up without you here.
All day yesterday the numbers kept lining up,
and now the clock is quiet enough for your voice to reach me.

I need to say this plainly.

When you were alive,
I couldn’t always remember your birthday on my own.
With all the calendars, all the reminders, all the noise in the world,
I still had to check sometimes.
January would come and I’d ask myself the date.

But now that you’re gone 
I know it without effort.
No reminder.
No screen.
No second guessing.

It lives in me now.

I’m sorry, Mama.
I’ve been saying that out loud for a long time 
just not where anyone could hear it.

I stayed on the road too long,
trying to outrun a system that made survival look like crime,
trying to escape a place that punished poverty before it ever punished harm.
I didn’t find myself fast enough.
I didn’t make it back in time.

I was the one bringing smoothies through the hood,
the one making sure you had your sea moss,
the one trying to keep your body strong
while mine was running on fumes.
I knew I was getting closer to my core 
I just hadn’t reached it yet.

When I cry, I do it quiet.
I cried when you were alive and hurting.
I cried when you passed.
I’ve been crying for months since.
I’m crying now.

I was young, Mama.
Young and tired and trying to escape a machine
that punishes reaction instead of conditions.
You asked me about my music.
You asked when I’d get back to it.

I had to step away.
I had to find myself after getting lost in digital systems.
I lost my soul trying to survive efficiently.
I had to go get it back.

Ever since you passed,
your voice has been asking me to finish the job.
I was in high pursuit.
Survival mode.
Stuck there for years.

Now I’m standing still.
Looking at myself.
Looking at our family.
Looking at the decisions we made under pressure.
The last year of your life plays back in my head on repeat.

I think about what you went through.
The surgery.
The comments you made that carried more weight than they sounded like.
The fight you put up.
The trouble with your legs.
The toll it took on me and my brother,
both of us doing our best to hold you up.

I think about those last moments 
you surrounded by family.
I know that’s what you loved.

I remember the strong years.
All of them.
The jobs.
The layoffs.
Raising us by yourself.
The park days.
The meals you made exactly how I liked them.

I think about when your mom passed
and you traveled alone to be with her.
Your luggage missed you 
like the world missed what you were carrying.

I couldn’t imagine what that pain was like back then.
Even though you hadn’t seen her in a while,
I didn’t understand what it meant to lose your mother.
I didn’t know that kind of absence.
I didn’t know that kind of break.

I was out of town, calling in, trying to back you up from a distance
when I should’ve been there in person.
If I didn’t support you the way you deserved in that moment,
I’m sorry.
I truly didn’t know.

Now I do.

Hershey’s still here.
Your favorite pup.
Your grandson is still smiling he misses you.
Your granddaughter is graduating, doing excellent.
I’m proud of her.
I want to show up better.
Show her another way when it matters most.

The other grandson I’ll handle him.
You know how I do.
The little ones?
I’ll look after them.

Your friends I’ll call them.
Check on them for you.
Carry your name gently.

I’m still crying, Mama.
I don’t know when that stops.
Maybe it doesn’t.

But I heard you.
I got the message.

I’ll finish this.
The battle.
The work.
The becoming.

I love you.
I miss you.
And I’ll see you when I get there.