BITTERSWEET BIRTHDAY HOW TO
I wonder what it’s like to live in a world where you’re so visible and invisible at the same time: where people notice you and even stare at you because you’re so different, but avoid you because they don’t know how to engage with you. I’ve been contemplating what it’s been like for him to live like this for the past thirty years, to experience the passage of time, and now, edge deeper into full-blown adulthood, without the prospect of exciting life events that tug the rest of us forward: the graduations, the career highs, the wedding celebrations, the first child, the first grandchild. As a non-verbal, visually impaired (he’s legally blind), physically disabled young adult with Cerebral Palsy who understands more than he can communicate, he occupies his own solitary world apart from ours - trapped in his body, alone with his thoughts, unable to fully engage with others in the ways we take for granted.
BITTERSWEET BIRTHDAY OFFLINE
I thought about how Mohammed was so far removed from this experience, from having friends of his own who think of him and convene on and offline to celebrate him. I couldn’t help but feel some heartache when I got on Facebook that day and read some of the birthday wishes sent to friends who shared my brother’s special day.
The other part stemmed from the realization that, besides us, his immediate family, few were aware Mohammed had a milestone decade birthday.
Part of our sadness stemmed from the reminder my brother’s birthdays always bring: aside from his orbits around the sun, we have no other milestones for him to celebrate. I’m still trying to process it all, the bittersweetness of the day. Mohammed’s 30th birthday was a few weeks ago, and we marked the occasion with a small family celebration. On August 23rd, 1988, this beautiful angelic soul was born into this world, and I’ve been blessed to call him my little brother since.
I have a story I’d like to share that’s very personal to me, something I’ve been wanting to open up about for a while. I share the post here, in the hopes that it will reach a wider audience and bring readers the kind of healing it brought me when I wrote it: For the first time, I saw what I couldn’t see before but was there right in front of me all along: that this special, silent figure in my life was the heart of my story. Disparate memories - painful ones and tender ones - rushed over me and took on new meaning as they spiraled together into a narrative in mind revolving around my brother, the thread that tied it all together. It felt like a crack: an avalanche seemed to break, the floodgates seemed to fling open. Suddenly, mind fog started to dissipate and turn into clarity as difficult life experiences I had struggled to understand and cope with came into pristine focus and suddenly began to make sense. Something gave way inside of me after I typed it up. This past summer, I shared a side of myself in a Facebook post I had never spoken about publicly before, and I haven’t felt the same since.
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