Today my grandmother would have been 105years old.

You may not know this about me, but I only knew one grandparent growing up. My maternal grandmother. She was Scottish and a redhead and naturally I gravitated toward her. I was the last grandchild born to her, from her youngest child and the only one who happened to also be a redhead. I share my middle name with her, my Scottish pride, my red locks, and almost my birthday. If I had come just 16 hours earlier, we would have had the same birthday.

And after all that, I can’t really say I know too much else about her. I remember a yellow bird music box that I got when she passed. It stays in my mom’s china cabinet since I move around so much and I don’t want it to get broken or lost. I have pictures of us sharing cakes and parties together. She even tried to make my board straight hair curly by sticking curlers in it when I was younger. A proper Scottish babe needs red ringlets ya know.

She passed when I was 12 and it was the first loss I really remember feeling. We did the whole thing, the wake, the funeral, the dividing up assets and stuff. I was off school for about a week. I vividly remember sitting in the funeral chapel with my cousins, and we were in the second room. All the children and my grandma’s sisters were in the first room, they closed these two sliding doors to give them privacy while they closed the casket. And just staring at that closed door for 30 seconds, I broke into heaving sobs. It shocked my one cousin beside me so much that she also started crying. Apparently, I have this effect on people because this one time my dog has a seizure while we were out for a walk and I got home and as soon as I bust into the door I broke into the same type of sobs and my mom rushed into the kitchen and immediately started crying as well without even knowing why I was breaking down.

I never really knew anything else about any of my other 3 grandparents. I knew the basics like their jobs and stuff. They all passed before my parents met.

So then this morning my mom says that my dad’s father has the same birthday as me. And I’m like “yo my mom’s on crack this morning” because I would have remembered if for my whole life I shared the same birthday as my grandfather that I never met.

BUT NOOOOOOOO my dad thought for his whole entire life that his father was born today, April 14th. He said that’s what it was written down as. And then he’s into genealogies now with my mom and found out that it says on the site they use that his father was born on APRIL 15TH!!!!! SO YEAH!! A bombshell 35 years later to learn that I quite possibly share the same birthday as my paternal grandfather that I never ever even met.

HOW INSANE IS THAT!?!

Also, since you’re already here, I made cupcakes for work today for my birthday. I handed them out to all the staff and thankfully a few declined them cos I had just enough to get to almost everyone!! And I put one on a senior therapist’s desk cos she wasn’t in her room and then one of my EA’s told her and the other ST (who had one at lunch) that they were birthday cupcakes and not Easter cupcakes like they thought. They did look really Eastery. Yellow icing and pastel sprinkles. Anyway, when my EA told them that, both ST’s came down to my room and had my students all sing Happy Birthday to me and if that wasn’t the most precious moment, I don’t know what is. I of course swayed along and hyped it up. It’s always so awkward to just stand there while people are singing to you! And that’s how I ended my day haha!