V A N I L L A

A Year in the making.

I have been planning for this day for over a year.  The day that I would celebrate my birthday with my new birthday companion.  My birthday buddy Kaden who was born on Aug 25th to fill a gap that I had in my soul after my original birthday buddy, my Mom, passed away.

Everyone that knows me knows how I felt about my birthday starting with the year mom passed away which I called my half birthday.  After that year, I did not really feel like celebrating my birthday anymore.  It was a very sad day with all of the Facebook memories and people sending me messages saying how they knew I was in pain but that she was in a better place and celebrating the day with me.  Unfortunately it was not something that I could just easily "get over" especially after having lost both Dad and then Mom within roughly a year.  I was in a dark place and my birthday was not a reminder of the blessed life I had, but of the massive loss I had and especially the feeling of emptiness due to the loss of my birthday buddy.  That feeling lasted 3 birthdays until this year, 2022 when I finally had something to look forward to again for this day.

When you are young, you look forward to your birthday for the gifts and being the center of attention.  At my age, I was not looking for either but the precious memories I could continue to make of a unique day I shared with someone special in my life.

I actually have a really good friend, Mike V. from NJ, who shares that same birthday.  Every year, including the most recent dark years, I would send an email, text or voicemail and wish my brother from another mother a happy birthday.  So while I am not technically alone on my birthday, especially since I have my wife, our sons and extended family that make the day special for me, I have not been really looking forward to it or in the mood to celebrate.  

Promises Made, Promises Kept.

So for 365 days, after the news broke that Kaden was actually born on my birthday, I was planning how I would celebrate our special day together.  I knew what we were going to do but not how it would be accomplished.

We would enjoy our first ice cream together.  My new birthday buddy and grand nephew, Kaden and I would have Vanilla ice cream for our shared birthday.

I'm not really a cake person and ice cream is my achilles heel.  I believe it had to do with what I was told about my mom.  Mom apparently only wanted to eat only ice cream during her pregnancy with me.  So much so that when I was born, I weighed slightly over 5 lbs at full term.  So my sweet tooth is all about ice cream like my mom.  She absolutely loved it and as she progressed in her Alzheimer's disease, ice cream was a real treat for her that she would absolutely tear up.

In preparation for Kaden's first time eating ice cream with his birthday buddy, I spent the year looking for recipes online with the hopes of finding the best recipe for homemade Vanilla ice cream.  I even purchased a Ninja Creami ice cream maker so I can make fresh Vanilla ice cream.  

I was so excited about the ice cream maker that when I took it out of the box, the outer bowl and lid fell out of the box and onto the floor.  Needless to say, the lid broke before I even got to use it the first time.  It took a few weeks before it was available before I got my replacement. I guess the same thing has happened to others.

About a month before our birthday, I started practicing making Vanilla ice cream and also created some other flavors.  The pamphlet that came with the Ninja has a very good homemade Vanilla recipe that was spot on.  I practiced several times so that I can perfect it the day before and have fresh ice cream to share with my little buddy.  

I actually had 3 flavors I prepared.  Vanilla, Vanilla Chocolate Chip and Vanilla with fresh strawberries.  As I stated previously, we are going to have Vanilla, in honor of Mom, but I wanted to have a variety of special flavors since it was his first time eating ice cream.  

The look on Kaden's face as he was having ice cream was priceless.  He loved it, especially the one with fresh strawberries.  However the look he gave me after taking a few bites took me down.  It stopped me in my tracks as I recalled the numerous times I would feed mom and she would give me a similar look.

After I recomposed myself, everybody else jumped in and participated in the ice cream festivities. 

I did not expect to react that way and while I was delighted that Kaden liked the home made ice cream (not sure he would tell the difference or understand the significance of it being home made), it made my day and my birthday special, once again.  It had a innate feeling to be able to celebrate my birthday with a buddy.  I am sure that over time, it will become even better for us as he looks forward to that day as well and we can plan the flavors together.

That same day we paid a visit to the cemetery together to talk with mom about the special day the three of us shared.  It also was a way for me to thank mom for my new birthday buddy.

In the end, it felt "complete" having done all of this on my birthday.  I have always been one to appreciate the symbolism of things.  It's the small things or the attention to details that matter to me.   Like how we walked together holding hands.

Angela & Dylan.  Thank you for having Kaden wait until his first birthday before he tasted Ice cream.  It made the day even more special to me.  What flavor do you think we should do for next year?  Let the planning begin.