This piece originally aired in February 2008 on WMUB-FM (Oxford, Ohio). I have been thinking about it since my mom’s death earlier this month. Her birthday anniversary coincided with Thanksgiving again this year. Listening to this audio essay ten years later, I’m so glad we had this celebration.

It is dedicated to all our imperfect loves.

 

It Had to Be You

 

My mother celebrated her seventieth birthday this past Thanksgiving and, since I knew it might get lost in all the turkey and pumpkin pie, I decided to throw her a surprise party the week before.

Now I know what they say, surprise parties are acts of aggression. Maybe it’s true: you come home one dark night and before you can flip a switch, an unseen hand does it for you.

“Surprise!”

You are blinded by light. Panic and shock give way to the joy of seeing old friends. They laugh at you (or is it with you?) and then shower you with cake and presents.

When one of my mother’s friends calls to RSVP, she tells me that she hopes our party will not cause my mom to have a second heart attack.

I have my reasons for this act of aggression, kind as it may be. If left to my mom, her birthday party would never happen. “Why should people come all this way for my birthday?” I can imagine her saying. “It’s no big deal.”

But it is a big deal. To mark having come so far. To be with those she cares about. A thought, unsummoned, enters my mind: I don’t want this gathering to wait until her funeral.

In addition to surviving my teenage years, my mother has recently survived a mild heart attack and breast cancer, undergoing surgery (twice), chemotherapy, and radiation. These days, she is doing okay and her cancer in remission. I hope she has many, many more birthdays, but looking at pictures from the past three years I am struck by how quickly she has aged and I think, this is not a time to procrastinate.

So I send out invitations. We’ll meet at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, serenade her, eat an elegant lunch at Puck’s restaurant, and then go on a guided tour. All she knows is that she and I are going to have a little mother-daughter time at the IMA.

When we get to the museum I claim I need to pick up a brochure. We walk down a hallway and then turn the corner.

“Surprise!”

“Oh,” she says. She takes a couple steps back. She calls out people’s names. The force of the surprise, the emotion it unleashes, causes her to cry. I have never seen her so happy.

On cue, the tenor from the barbershop quartet Smilin’ Through blows his pitch pipe, and we all sing “Happy Birthday.”

Strangers stop by to listen to the music. They look at my mom and grin. Then the quartet sings, “It Had To Be You.” And I realize what a perfect song for the imperfect love between two people. Especially the lines:

For nobody else, gave me a thrill 

With all your faults, I love you still

It had to be you, wonderful you

It had to be you.

Wouldn’t it be great if the afterlife were like a surprise party? You turn the corner and there they all are: your friends, your crazy cousin, your first boss, and your kids. Beaming. Here just for you. And then a man you’ve never seen before steps up and blows his pitch pipe. And they all begin to sing…”It Had To Be You.”