HALCYON

TANJOBI

Saturday. October 24th, 2020.
Both the day exactly a week before Halloween, and the best birthday I remember having.

The two years before 2020, I did not celebrate my birthday at all.
2018 was when my grandma was first diagnosed with amnesia and it was no surprise when I found out she had forgotten my birthday.

I had waken up to complete silence as if it was an ordinary day, and she carried on like she usually would. She made us breakfast and talked to me about what seemed like everything but myself-and that was probably because she couldn't remember much about me.
She didn't say 'happy birthday' or give me a hug, and I'll admit that I was disappointed.

In 2019, it was the same except Dr.Caleb told me happy birthday and he even went as far as to say happy belated for when he missed it the year before.
It was sad to know my grandma's doctor knew more about me than she did.
My grandma was bed ridden due to her really bad arthritis and she forgot more and more as the days passed, it's not like I could have even talked about any memories before she got like that with her...

I thought that was nice of Dr.Caleb really,
but I had already looked my grandma,

that only had one grandchild,

in her eye,

and I saw just how much she had forgotten about me.

My birthday was nothing to her if she couldn't remember it's date.

I couldn't remember what I had done for my birthdays before 2018, and that scared me. I thought that maybe I had amnesia too, and since I was alone on a day I'm sure I once considered very special-it's safe to say I was pretty sad.
My birthday in 2020 wasn't like that though, and after looking back at the previous years, I could really say that it was a very pleasant change in pace.

Truly it was.
In every way.

I was sleeping that morning, like usual, and even when unconscious-
I was already expecting myself to have a bad day.
I was woken up by my phone that was ringing it's heart out on my nightstand. I thought that maybe it would've been Dr.Caleb, telling me happy birthday early so he wouldn't forget and go about his day-but it was Bao.

It's a bit strange, I was already close with Bao at that time-but I hadn't expected him to do anything for me. Sure, I wanted him to, but that didn't mean I actually sat and thought about all the things he could've done for me and started to look forward to them.

That just meant that I had a little bit of hope in me just like everyone else should have on the day that
they were born.

I picked up my phone groggily and squinted my eyes to find that the incoming call had ended since I had taken too long to answer it.
My phone shut off after the ringer did and I had to press the home button again to open it back up.

As soon as I did a picture of Bao and I at the lake stared back at me, except this time it was half covered in missed calls.

All from no one other than Bao.
It had to be at least 5 missed calls, so I was already put into panic mode.
I quickly swiped one of the missed calls which made me instantly dial him back and I let out a yawn right before he picked up.