21

In early February 1992, I had a dream. I woke up remembering nothing about the dream except that the 21st of the month meant something - I didn't know what.

I'm not one to think dreams mean very much, but I still wondered if anything would happen on the 21st of February that year. Nothing did. I vaguely thought about it for a couple more months, then the thought of something happening on the 21st just faded, but was never forgotten.

As day broke on 21st March 2010, I was taken back to 1992. I had seen my mother take her last breath a few hours before, in the very early morning of the 21st. I remember thinking, in the midst of my mourning of my mother, 'was that what the dream meant?'

On the 21st of April 2010, I happened to be driving by a McDonald's and decided to stop by. I never have been a person who eats at McDonald's, but my mother worked there for a couple of decades, so I decided to go in, get something, in honor of my mother. Since then, on the 21st of every month, I go to McDonald's. Being that I can't eat almost everything on the menu, I always order one of the same 2 or 3 things, and I'm fine with that. I'm not there for the food, I'm there for my mother.

On the 21st of August 2012, a kid was born. I didn't know about this kid, and it was just another 21st of the month for me - I went to work and went to McDonald's. I've looked at my calendar many times in the past few months, to try and figure out if the day had any importance to me - it didn't.

On the 21st of March 2014, it was four years since my mother died. It was also the first day the kid born on the 21st of August 2012 came into our flat for the first time.

In the five months since then, the kid has run around our flat endlessly, bounding from one room to another, jumped on our bed, fallen off our sofa more times that I like, stomped feet on the floor in the midst of a tantrum as well as in the middle of 'If you're happy and you know it'. The kid has laughed and cried and made me do both. The kid has eaten more food than I thought was possible for someone that size. The kid has made me feel very old at times and very young at others.

On the 21st of August, almost exactly two years to the minute of when the kid was born, we headed to McDonald's. We had a birthday lunch and I thought about my mother. 

We spoke to my sister on the kid's 2nd birthday; my sister, whose face reminds me of my mother. We spoke to my father on the kid's 2nd birthday; my dad, who often says things that remind me of my mother. We watched a video made by my niece on the kid's 2nd birthday; my niece, who makes faces at times that I see my mother in.

As the kid and I sat there, watching the video of my niece, saying 'again' every time it ended and us watching it again, the kid would look up and smile at me. It wasn't a smile of my mother, not in the way it looked, not at all. But it was a smile like my mother's in the quickness of how it would flash on and then off. I thought about my mother then, feeling sad that she never got to meet this kid, but also felt happy that the kid got the chance to meet my mother, in a way, through the father that carried his mother with him.

My mom and I on a sofa

The kid and I on a sofa

In the end, the 21st dream was probably nothing. Just a dream, but the 21st of the month has so much meaning to me now that's it's day I look forward to most every month.