Shinnecock Voices - Dan's Papers

View from Alaska - Photograph by Austin Roe

Summer in the North - Part One:

Feb. 21 is my birthday. Martin carries a cake, with Laurie behind him, walking through the dimly lit hall from the kitchen and into the small area I call my dining room. The round table in the center that was bare the night before was now adorned with a lace tablecloth and new candlesticks. Only three place settings were left at the far end of the table. No one else would be joining us, just my son Martin, and my nurse Laurie.

Laurie began singing the birthday song as Martin slowly placed the cake down at the setting in front of me. No candles stick out from the cake. No writing in icing of well wishes for the year to come, just a simple set of flowers, forget-me-nots. The bright piping lay atop pearly white marzipan. The cake’s colors and design match the well worn slippers on my feet.

Picking up the knife with my once strong, now weak and arthritic hand, the candlelight catches on the gem in my wedding ring and I’m lost for a moment. My mind taking me back to the summer of my 18th birthday... to read the rest of Summer in the North - Part One, please go the Dan's Papers.