Birthday Wishes and a Chocolate Cake
May memoir prompt: that one birthday
There are years that ask questions and years that answer. — Zora Neale Hurston
My birthday is December 21st — one day before my grandmother’s and nine days after my cousin’s. Before my grandmother passed away, my family would get together at my father’s house every Christmas Eve to exchange Christmas gifts. After dinner, we would have a cake that said, “Happy Birthday Nan, Jessica, and Marissa.” The three of us would pose for pictures and blow out the candles together. My aunt would slice the cake, and someone else would pass pieces around the table.
Our cake was always vanilla or marble with vanilla frosting. Each year, when a piece would make its way over to me, I would continue passing it along. Then, my father, aunt, or grandmother would say, “You’re not going to have any cake?”
“No, thank you. I don’t like vanilla frosting,” I would reply.
This scene played on a loop year after year until 2008 when I was turning 30.
Six months before my 30th birthday, I told my boyfriend, Jason, I wanted a big party. He laughed. “You’re thinking about this now? Your birthday isn’t until December.”
“I know,” I said. “But I think the party should be early, like in September. That…
