Cruel to Be Kind, by Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise | @MDWorld

April 5, 2014 Martha Thomases 1 Comment

“April is the cruelest month.”  T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land

“In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” Benjamin Franklin

“April showers bring May flowers.”  Everyone in the world when it rains in April.

So how is your April so far?  Did you get any good laughs on April Fool’s Day?  If so, you’re way ahead of me.

I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with April.  My birthday is in the middle of the month.  When I was a kid, I would get so excited planning my party.  My mother, a very creative woman, would plan really fun activities to play in our backyard before the cake and presents.  Then it would rain, we’d have to find something else to do, and the games would happen at my sister’s party, in the more reliably sunny August.

It makes sense not to give up on a perfectly good party game.  And yet, I seethed with resentment.  I was a horrible, petty, vindictive person when I was eight years old.

One might hope that being in high school, at a boarding school in Connecticut far away from my family, would give me a sense of perspective.  It did not.  Two of my best friends had birthdays the day before I did, and I always felt they got more love (and better presents) than I did.  And then I would think about how difficult it was for my parents to do anything for me long distance, and I would be consumed with guilt.

As a grown-up, April stopped meaning presents because I had to pay taxes.  My taxes have always been ridiculously complicated.  I have to pay in four states.  Now, as a rational person, I know that I’m really lucky to be in this financial position.  Poor people don’t file complicated tax forms.  Poor people (and others) get refunds.  My father always believed that getting a refund meant he had given the government an interest-free loan, and he tried his best to avoid that.  All well and good, but for me, it meant that we always went down to the wire on whether or not we were going to owe anything, and if we’d have enough cash.

So far, it’s all pretty normal, right?  Everyone has a birthday.  Everyone has to pay taxes.  Everyone waits and waits for spring, even as April can be dreary and wet.

Not everyone loses a spouse and a good friend on the same date, separated by one year.  That’s what happened to me in 2012 and 2013.  I am sitting here full of dread, wondering if the third time will be the charm.

And yet.  (There is always an “and yet.”)

The magnolia tree in the backyard of the house in which I grew up always bloomed on my birthday. In New York, the trees are usually a few weeks ahead (New York City is always ahead of the rest of the country).  The daffodils have sprouted, and the most eager are in bloom.  The buds on the trees are fat with anticipation. Burpee sent me the plants I ordered, convinced that they will be able to grow.

Here’s hoping that’s true, for the plants and for all  of us.

Martha Thomases, Media Goddess, eats her birthday cake first.