The Celebration I Couldn't Give

Celebration I Couldn't Give

August doesn’t just carry grief.
It carries silence.

The kind of silence that cuts deeper than words ever could.

The year after everything happened—after my suicide attempt, after Papa died—my mom acted like nothing happened. No conversation. No check-in. No acknowledgment that my world had caved in and I’d barely crawled out.

She just wanted me to celebrate my birthday. Smile. Eat cake. Pretend.

But I couldn’t.
I still can’t.

Every year since, I’ve masked through it. I put on the show. The fake smile. The polite “thank you.” I laugh in the photos. I play my part. And everyone thinks I’m okay.

But I’m not. Not on that day.

Inside, I’m broken.
Inside, I’m replaying the moment I almost didn’t make it.
Inside, I’m wishing someone—anyone—would see through the mask and just say, “I know this day is hard.”

But they don’t. And so I cry alone.

This isn’t bitterness. It’s grief that never got permission to speak.
This is what happens when survival is ignored—when healing is forced to happen in silence, in secret, in shame.

I deserve to be seen.
I deserve to not fake joy when I’m in mourning.
I deserve to be honest about what this month really means to me.

And if no one else gives me that space… I’ll take it for myself.

“Some days, survival is the quietest form of rebellion.”