On the morning of the day I turned 37, my mother was the first person to call me with birthday wishes. That was true every year. She was always the first to call. Always around 7 a.m.

But that year’s birthday call was different. Her voice was shaking on the other end of the line. She was close to tears as we talked. I carried the portable phone to my bedroom window and stood chatting with her, looking out over a cookie cutter, suburban neighbourhood that was just waking up. I knew – without her saying – that her tears were because she believed this would be the last time she would ever call me on my birthday.

That summer, she’d been diagnosed with a rare form of blood cancer. It was terminal when they found it. She was taking treatment for it that first fall and it was going well. But we were all afraid that we were hurtling toward an ending that would come quicker than we would ever be ready for. 

The truth, that I would learn so many years later when she eventually did die though, is that you can never be ready.

Nothing prepared me for the loss of my mother. Even knowing that she would die didn’t prepare me. She was my entry point into this world. She was my first home. The map I followed with every step I once took. She was part warrior. Part gardener of the earth. Part mirror. Part cheerleader. Both my guide and my foil at times. She wasn’t a saint. Or a saviour. But she had been all of everything for so long in my life that I didn’t think I would know how to be in the world if she wasn’t there.

At the same time, I didn’t want to pretend that she wasn’t going to die. I didn’t want – and neither did she – excessive measures to be taken that would keep her alive past the time that called for her letting go. I wanted her to be able to go home peacefully. And I knew it was irrational but, I also desperately wanted her to stay with us.

Waking up those first mornings without her was unimaginable. Like waking up in a world without a sky. I felt as hollow then as the spaces between the stars. I am less hollow now. Almost five years later. 

I woke up on my birthday today knowing that I wouldn’t hear her voice on the other end of the line this morning – but I feel her here. I think it’s true that the people we’ve loved most become a physical part of us. Ingrained in our synapses – in the pathways where memories are created. And I think it’s true that their souls are still, and always, around us. And, from time to time, they are capable of giving us gifts.

When my mother was almost seven years old, a singer/songwriter named Warren Zevon was born in Chicago. One day, some years before my mother’s cancer diagnosis in 2007 and not long before he died, Warren wrote a beautiful song that my mother never heard. I had never heard it either. Until yesterday.

While on a birthday road trip to see the fall colours, my wife and I were talking about how much my mom would have loved the brilliant scenery. My wife sent up a silent prayer to her to give me an “undeniable” sign – filled with emotion – that she was with me on my birthday. I didn’t know she had made the wish.

We drove on for another two hours before our Spotify playlist got interrupted in the middle of a song – replaced with a strange pause and then… Warren’s song, which was not on the playlist. Happy birthday, my mother seemed to say to me, with these words:

Shadows are fallin’ and I’m runnin’ out of breath
Keep me in your heart for a while
If I leave you it doesn’t mean I love you any less

Keep me in your heart for a while

When you get up in the mornin’ and you see that crazy sun
Keep me in your heart for a while
There’s a train leavin’ nightly called “When All is Said and Done”

Keep me in your heart for a while

Sometimes when you’re doin’ simple things around the house
Maybe you’ll think of me and smile
You know I’m tied to you like the buttons on your blouse

Keep me in your heart for a while

Hold me in your thoughts
Take me to your dreams
Touch me as I fall into view
When the winter comes
Keep the fires lit
And I will be right next to you

Keep me in your heart for a while

My mother once carried me into this world – through the veil of time itself – on this particular October day. And she is carrying me still.