As another ride around the sun rolled by, it’s March again. Not just March, but the day that I will always associate with the greats, Caesar and Pat. The Ides of March have come (but not gone), and so my mother’s birthday.

Even if it weren’t her birthday, I woke up thinking of Pat any way, a sign maybe in the universe’s kink of sending signs. Here’s the story.

The other night, I was toddling off to bed. It was later than it should have been, and like my mother before me I had fallen asleep on the couch. The wind and rain howled outside.

I saw a little ball on the floor, which I thought was loose yarn I had dropped from my crochet/knitting bag. I stooped to pick it up.

It wasn’t yarn. It was warm and moved a little. I yelped and took my hand back.

Apparently, a little critter in the order rodentia was living its final hours in a fetal ball. I assisted it down the road to the final roundup, off this mortal coil, and into a plastic bag, triple tied.

The next day, traps were set. Then, at 2:47 a.m. March 15, 2023, the same day Pat was born in the auspicious year of 1929, while banks are failing again, I heard a snap from another room. I buried my head deeper under my blankets and pillows and slept uneasily.

In the light of day, I woke to Pat’s birthday and found the snapped mouse trap and its little victim.

But that’s not the story. It’s the spark.

Around this time of year back east in the wild lands of Braintree, winter is trying to decide whether to let the crocuses poke through or continue to shit white cold piles of snow.

Pat’s house sat next to a small swath of woods. Winter sent rodent-shaped refuges seeking shelter from its storms to terrorize Pat.

Pat became unglued. Agitated. Beside herself, Petrified. Absolutely batshit-around-the-bend-crazy-scared-out-of-her-mind at any little field mouse that might poke a whiskered nose out or scurry across the linoleum. She’d practically levitate to the ceiling climbing on chairs and cabinets and counters away from real and imagined threats and call me to come over to save her.

Side note. Pat didn’t call me much. It was a Mountain not coming to Mohamed, Mohamed going to the mountain kind of thing. I called her, she did not call me.

But fear of mice tossed protocol out the door. She would call for emergency help.

I would come by and set traps. Then, I would have to come back, check the traps, and clear away the dead.

Truth be told, inside I may only be a step or two away from Pat’s terror. I’ve felt on edge for days. Corners are all full of potential enemies lurking and watching. The mice feel my fear and are waiting to attack. I hear them breathing.

I can gird my loins and battle, if I must. My rational brain struggles with my irrational revulsion and fear, but I can do what must be done.

One winter, I went to Pat’s house to check the trap I set.

She wouldn’t enter the room. She pointed and shouted at me to do something from another room. She yelled orders from the other side of the house, telling me where the broom and dustpan were and a paper bag and the garbage bags and maybe some Lysol and napalm for good measure.

I braced myself and swept the former beast into the paper bag. I rolled up the bag. I put that paper bag into a garbage bag and tied the garbage back tightly shut.

With my morbid package, I walked to the kitchen toward Pat for my disposal orders.

Pat lost her mind!

She leapt. Leapt like the best leaping thing. Gazelle or hare or cheetah?

Pat leapt onto the kitchen counter, hugging the side of the refrigerator and cabinets for balance, and screaming bloody murder. She accused me of trying to terrorize her. She accused me of threatening her. She accused me of trying to kill her.

She banished me from the kitchen, from the living room, onto the porch, into the yard, onto the street. I could not return without proof my hands were empty and the dead mouse was removed.

(I can’t remember if I got away with putting it in an outside garbage can or if I had to put it in my trunk and drive away with it eventually.)

Back to today.

I have so much more to say, but I’ve hit the midnight hour and just missed hitting publish on Pat’s day. This story is one of many that still resonate inside my head like they just happened.

She’s been gone now 21 years this January. I can now say the year with conviction, because my brother Danny finally took care of unfinished business that all of her children had neglected.

Pat is buried next to her Earl under the gravestone she erected for Earl with spare room on the stone’s face to add her name. For the last couple of decades, though, like the tomb of the unknown soldier, her name wasn’t there above her head. Danny fixed that. If you find yourself at Braintree Cemetery, you can find Pat and Earl together.

I imagine you could also visit the family that also is there as a mystery incantation from my childhood, grave markers in a row that say “Father,” “Mother,” “Sister,” “Charlie.” I will always wonder about Charlie.