As I mentioned in my last blog post, Mom’s 82nd birthday was yesterday. My aunt, who died 12 days before Mom last March, is buried next to her. She is three years older, and her birthday is next week.

So naturally, I had to take enough flowers and cupcakes to the cemetery to acknowledge and commemorate the two most important women of my life.

The gal in the office lent me a chair, and I sat with the ladies for over an hour and a half, doing a continuous running monologue. I grieved the fact that neither one of them were able to interrupt me—or to help me eat any of the cupcakes. They both really loved chocolate.

Part of the time the rain poured so hard it ran in a sheet off my umbrella, but I held my post, remembering all the times Mom and I had talked about “teardrops from heaven.” I thought maybe between the two of them they’d wrangle me a rainbow, but it was a pretty dark day and no sun.

I must have looked pretty pathetic sitting out there by myself, but the weather kept witnesses away, and no living soul heard me sing my personalized rendition of “Happy Birthday.” Everyone else apparently enjoyed it, as there were no complaints.

Or maybe that’s what the torrential downpour was really all about… Sheesh! Suddenly everybody’s a critic!