Todays my birthday

Today seems heavy to me, well heavier than I'm accustomed to. I woke up my chest aching, tears flowing from my eyes and an empty feeling inside. Birthdays are normally hard for me but this one hits harder than most. My dad called me as he always has since I left home. He sang my own personal happy birthday song that he made up. "Happy birthday my little angel, sure is nice that I am able to witness here another year of you growing my beautiful dear" on my voicemail. In the most beautiful soft voice that cracks slightly now from age. He asked me to call but he knows I won't. I don't want to talk about it today, not today. I was raised by my dad, he was an older dad, being 40 when I was born. He met my mom at his favorite restaurant. She was a waitress and a lot younger than he. He always tells me how beautiful she was. Soft red curls that perfectly matched her freckled face. She was short and petite but had large hands. He said the first time she took his order he stared without speaking and that made her smile and it opened what became their first conversation. My dad went back to that restaurant every day after that first meeting, that's why it's his favorite. He always stares and she always laughs. Their first date was on a Sunday, they went for ice cream. My dad got mint chocolate chip, his favorite and my mom had rocky road. They went out every Sunday, it was my mom's only day off. My dad fell in love quickly, but my mom was always distant, he says. I was born 2 years after the day they met. With the same red curls and the same perfectly matched freckles. My dad says it was the happiest day of his life. Two months later my mom turned 25 years old, that was the day she left us. My dad says he woke up and she was just gone. No note, no calls just gone. He spoke of her often, all of her pictures still hung on the walls. I looked just like her, same hair and face but I was heavier in weight. He set a place for her at the table that remained empty. He said a prayer for her at night when he tucked me in. And although he never said it I know the ring he gave me was hers. It was on my 14th birthday when I received a package in the mail that I knew she was alive. A box, square wrapped in brown paper like the bags from the grocery store. It was neat and taped well, addressed to me from " MOM". My dad placed it on the kitchen table one day after school. He had a smile on his gently wrinkled face and was waiting for me to react. I smiled at him, asked about work and went to my room. Every year since he has placed the same box in the same spot on the same table on my birthday. And every year since I've left home he has called and asked if I wanted him to mail the box to me. The first year or two I laughed it off and changed the subject. I would ask him about the weather back home or how the dog was doing. He would immediately answer my question and tell me he loves me. I no longer have the strength to pick up the phone for my birthday. Now I just wait to call the day after, I make up an excuse about being with friends from school or being in a class that ran late. He has never pressed the issue and due to his gentle nature I'm sure he never will. Today however is especially hard, today I turn the same age she was when she left. I know he means well and I know he misses her. He has not loved since, never a date or even a woman at the house. He keeps her picture by the bed and still has her toothbrush in his bathroom. Her perfume still sits in her spot on the dresser and what's left of her belongings still rest in the closet where they were hung. I don't know how to love someone I have never met. I don't feel what my dad feels and I'm not sad the way he is. I had an amazing childhood with a great dad. He was always there for me. At every dance recital and soccer game. When I scraped my knee falling off my bike. He even chased my first boyfriend home when he broke my heart. I wonder sometimes why she left,and maybe if I opened the box it would tell me. Maybe she was too young and couldn't handle being a mom. Maybe she just didn't love my dad. This day is filled with confusion and questions I don't want answered. I don't want to know why she left or what she has to say. If it was that important she would have been here to say it, right? I wish he would throw the box away, that would end the what ifs and take away the temptation. For him I think it's that last bit of hope that somewhere in this world she's thinking of us. I didn't grow up missing her and I don't want to start now. So there it sits, in the same spot right where he left it. As though touching it would burn me as though what it holds would plague my existence. The box sent to me, the box I have never touched, the unopened relationship with my mother.