No one is getting younger. Every summer, I try to make it to the States to see family and friends—and most years, that means being in Durango, Colorado, on August 20 for my stepmother’s birthday. I bake a cake for the occasion. If my older brother is visiting too, he helps by icing it. My younger brother usually does the birthday meal. Setting the table, getting the drinks—that’s about all the help the rest of us give him. He prefers it that way. My stepmother is the same. She needs no company in the kitchen and prefers that people keep out of her way. But if you’re hovering, she’ll put you to use: shuck that corn, mix these ingredients, fry these chapati, taste-test this sauce. “Okay, Will,” she’d say to my dad, to let him know it was time to fire up the charcoal for grilling. Not bossy—just good at delegating.
Her meals are delicious, yes, but even better, she schedules them to suit our needs. She’s always been like that: focused, self-directed, steady, generous. She lives her life with purpose—clear about what matters, uninterested in fuss, and never one to postpone a good thing. If something nice is in the wings, she’ll say to bring it on now. Not for her the pleasure of anticipation.
Maybe that’s why she’s an early riser—on to the rewards of the day. By the end of a day, from the mix of pleasure and duty, she will have gathered impressions and observations, information and anecdotes. She’s a good storyteller and offers what she’s gleaned, often about the ever-flowering tree that is human knowledge of animal behavior. I remember her once describing what a scientist had observed: a mother leaf hopper pushing away a human thumb that threatened her brood. “Can you imagine?” my stepmother said. That’s the kind of detail she holds onto—precise, small, true. I’ll be amazed at the image. My older brother, though, will likely have a matching tale. Or two. Often with a point to make.
My older brother is instructive to a fault. My younger brother, self-sufficient to a fault. I’m forgetful to a fault—easily thrown off when there’s too much happening around me. Which is why, when I’m focusing on a task, I keep others at a distance, too. And my stepmother? By her own account, she’s cranky at times and doesn’t filter her language. She’s not foul-mouthed, exactly, just colorfully expressive. Uninhibited to a fault.
This year, I wasn’t there on her birthday. I didn’t forget; it just didn’t fit into my plans. Others have missed it, too, in recent years—her mother, her brother, her husband—but only because they had to. Lately, even friends who used to call or write in recognition of the day haven’t done so. At 80, she’s outlived many of the people who used to remember. And she’d be the first to say it: “They can’t anymore. They’re dead.” She isn’t sentimental. No drama, no fuss. No wondering why. For her, life isn’t so much mysterious as measured. It begins. It ends. And in between, you get on with it.
Still, I wish I had been there. Next year I will be, again, to bake the cake on her birthday.
But here’s a little secret: my stepmother doesn’t think a minor thing like a date should get in the way of a major thing like a birthday cake. So we didn’t stand on ceremony. Not there on the actual day? Then we’d make do with a different day. And so we had the ceremony—because why wait for a pleasure you can have now?
