Three days after Eric died my oldest child turned 6. Needless to say, none of us felt like celebrating. But when you’re 6, a birthday is a big deal. We had already pulled him out of school, flown him across the country and postponed his birthday party; we had to do something.
As with most 5 and 6 year olds, my son loves Chuck E. Cheese. As with most parents, I do not. I had been telling him a little white lie…..that there were no Chuck E. Cheese’s in our home state of North Carolina. So far he was buying it. I decided we would try to find a Chuck E. Cheese in Las Vegas to make all of his birthday wishes come true. That way he could run around and play and we wouldn’t have to hold our hard to come by smiles for too long.
His birthday morning we went to the restaurant where we’d been having breakfast everyday and I told the wait staff that it was his birthday. He got chocolate cake for breakfast, complete with candles. Later we were standing by the front desk when he took a call of birthday wishes. The front desk staff overheard and asked us what was going on. Later, when we got back to our room, there was a huge basket full of candy bars waiting for him with a note from the front desk staff.
And of course there was lunch at Chuck E. Cheese. He could not have been more excited. He and his little brother ran around and played every game they had and racked up the tickets. Later they exchanged them for the greatest cheap plastic toys in the world. All in all it was a success, despite the circumstances.
Twenty-four days after Eric died; it would have been his birthday. While he probably would have liked for us to celebrate at Chuck E. Cheese, we chose another route. My in-laws watched my children and my husband and I went to visit my parents. We had an early cocktail hour, and scattered his ashes in the marsh behind their house. We tried to celebrate Eric’s life with laughter and memories, but it was too soon, too raw. We cried and comforted each other and somehow made it through.
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