Happy 80th Birthday mom!  I can turn right around in this rolling computer chair which used to be hers and announce this to all that remains of her inside a plastic bag sealed with a silver metal tag #3117 inside a decorative wooden box sitting on the blue powered reclining chair which Sister Palmettia bought for her.  And that's what I would say to Mrs Xylia Couch if she were alive today.  But Xylia Couch, my mother, is still dead. 

      The last time I took the time out of my busy life to celebrate the day of my mother's birth with her was in 2007 when she turned 75 years old.  My young wife Miracle Tinker and I took a flight from San Diego and joined my two sisters in wishing her well on her special day.  Brother Church was in Iraq at that time and was unable to attend but Xylia ensured we set a place for a framed 8x11 picture of him anyway at the fancy Mexican restaurant table.  We video taped the whole event to capture every moment of our adoration for this woman.  In other words we made her wear silly hats and tied balloons around her like a clown for our own amusement.  She seemed to enjoy it though. 

      And believe it or not, I was often hard pressed to know exactly how old my own mother actually was from year to year.  There was a private joke we shared ever since her 45th birthday or so where she would ask me how old she was and I would reply, "Aren't you about 42?"  This little fabrication seemed to give her a smile, but after awhile it ensured that I had NO idea how old she actually was without resort to a calendar and a calculator.  I found a Rocky Hats ball cap once with the year 1932 emblazoned on it which I wore when we came to see her in 2007.  I would refer to it quite often when asked how old my mother was, but not that day.  That day I knew the magic number was "75."

     Her husband Dillon Couch was also still alive at that time.   We all did our very best to help him enjoy the day as well, which with his advanced years was certainly no easy task.  I wish I knew more about Dillon Couch but I honestly don't.  If I did know more I probably would have written yesterday about his service in World War II, but I only read his obituary today out of morbid curiosity.  There's probably research I could do about the man my mother married in their twilight years....but I'm too lazy to do it.  Suffice it to say that Dillon would not see Xylia's 79th birthday.

     It is a matter of record that Dillon Couch passed away in a nursing home on MY birthday just 16 days after his own 90th birthday in March of 2011.  As an accomplished musician he left this world with perfect timing, just before his benefits ran out, without which Xylia would have been hard pressed to afford his care.  Sister Grace was there when he passed so it is a small comfort to know that he was not alone.  Before he married my mother he was a widower of a 43 year marriage but did not have any children from that union to mourn his passing.  I heard the news of it at the time but was unable or probably unwilling to do much about it.  It seems to me from that day Xylia Couch's health began to deteriorate ever rapidly culminating in her passing in November of the same year.

      Today would be Mrs Xylia Couch's 80th birthday but Xylia Couch, my mother, is dead.  Long live Xylia Couch!