I’ve been thinking about my mother’s 61st birthday on Sept. 2, 2001. Mother suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and she had a psychotic breakdown sometime around Christmas the previous year. Her condition had not stabilized nine months later. She had been in and out of the hospital all that year. She was in fact an inpatient on her birthday, but her doctor thought she was well enough to leave the hospital for a few hours. Dad and I took her to Applebee’s.
We knew that the wait staff sang Happy Birthday to the patrons if they knew it was their birthday, but we didn’t know if Mother was up to that much attention from strangers, so we decided to simply not say anything about it being Mother’s birthday when we went inside the restaurant. But when the waitress was taking our orders, Mother announced the news herself. “It’s my birthday!” She said it like a little kid. Her eyes were wide open but not focused on anything in particular, which is a common thing among people with her condition, and her smile was unusually broad. The waitress politely wished her a happy birthday and went about her business.
The meal went well. Mother remained calm and she didn’t say anything inappropriate to those around us or act out in a way that would have required us to scold her or take her back to the hospital. However, both Dad and I knew what was going to happen, and sure enough, when we were almost finished, about ten restaurant employees came up to our table with balloons and a complementary dessert, and they all sang to Mother. Thankfully, Mother was delighted and not disturbed in the slightest. Dad and I were greatly relieved. It was a sad, funny and sweet moment.
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