Birthday Season

Birthday Season

April.

We call it Birthday Season in my family

starting with April 6th: Peter.

My first memory:

"You have a new brother."

Amy: April 12th. John and

I were teenagers. Mom's last

two pregnancies seemed

embarrassingly late. We

were having friends over

listening to music, practicing

the new dances. Who knew

then how much we'd come to

appreciate and love them.

April 16th, me. How amazing

that my husband, Lou and my

sister Mary's husband, Steve would

be born four years after me, 3 years

before her: April seventeenth, 1952.

Then the musicians:

April 23rd: Bernie, eight years after me,

eleven months after Mary. He was six

when the Beach Boys had their first hit,

seven when the Beatles came on the scene.

April 25th: Brian Heveron-Smith. Mary's

middle child. We have Chip in March then

Mary and Scott, Amy's husband, in May.

There are a flurry of cards, emails, phone

calls as the season ramps up every year.

I still remember the day John pointed

out to me that April was exactly nine

months after Mom and Dad's wedding

anniversary. So, that explained it:

They were celebrating!