9 min read · 1,696 words
I spent 31 years making sure kids knew somebody remembered their birthdays, and I never told anybody mine was coming.
I’m writing this to you, Marlene, because you’re the only person who knew me before I started standing on that corner. You used to say I’d be good at the crossing guard job because I could remember everybody’s name. You were right about the names. The birthday thing happened later.
I’ve still got the little spiral notebook I used to keep in my vest pocket. It’s the object I keep picking up and putting down now that I’m retired. The cover is soft from rain and my thumb, and the pages smell faintly like the peppermint candies I used to carry. I thought I’d throw it away. I haven’t.
At first, I wrote down the names of the kids who crossed at Alder and Third because I was afraid I’d mix them up. There were a lot of them, and I’m not naturally good at faces. I’m better with details. One boy had a red lunchbox. One girl always wore a purple knit hat, even when it wasn’t cold.
A few months in, I learned that birthdays made the morning better. I’d ask a kid when theirs was, then write it in the notebook. When the day came, I’d sing to them as they waited at the curb. Not well. I’m not pretending I have a voice. But kids don’t care if you’re off-key.
I was a widow by then. My husband, Ed, had been gone a few years, and our daughter lived in Spokane. The kids gave me a reason to get dressed on mornings when I could’ve stayed home and let the day go by. I didn’t tell them that. I just sang.
The first birthday I wrote down was for a boy named Levi. He was shy and tried to pretend he didn’t like the attention. “You don’t have to sing,” he told me.
“I know,” I said. “But I’m going to.”
He grinned all the way across.
That became the routine. Their birthdays, every school morning, rain or shine. I sang to kids who’d grown taller than me, then to their little brothers and sisters. Some moved away. Some came back years later and stopped their cars to wave. I kept the notebook because I didn’t trust my memory as much as I wanted to.
I didn’t write my own birthday in it.
You know why, Marlene. After Ed died, I got used to not making a fuss. My birthday fell in May, near the end of the school year, and I’d tell myself it was just another day. That sounds sensible until you say it out loud.
Still, I liked the work. I liked that the corner belonged to all of us for a few minutes each morning. I knew which parents were running late and which kids needed an extra second before stepping off the curb. I also knew I could be bossy. If somebody drove too fast, I’d point my sign at them and give them a look. I was not always charming.
One year, a father complained to the school office because I’d told him to stop checking his phone at the crosswalk. He came by the next morning and said, “You embarrassed me.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. I wasn’t, really. “But I need you watching the road.”
He nodded and put his phone away. After that, he waved every day. I tell you because I wasn’t some perfect grandmother figure. I got tired. I got sharp. I also wanted to be useful, maybe more than was healthy.
Then the district started talking about a new crossing plan. The school was growing, and they wanted to put in a signal at the next street. I heard the job might be cut. I acted like that didn’t bother me. My supervisor, Denise, said, “You’ve earned a break, June.”
“Maybe,” I told her.
That wasn’t what I meant. I was afraid the corner would go on without me and nobody would notice. I’m ashamed to write that, but there it is.
The city decided to keep the crossing guard position until the end of the school year, so I worked through June. My last day was a Friday. It was also my birthday, though I hadn’t told Denise or the school. I packed my vest and stop sign the night before. I put my notebook in my purse.
At 7:30 that morning, I walked to Alder and Third like always. I had my thermos, and the coffee had that burnt taste it gets when it sits too long. I remember the taste because I’d taken one sip and thought I should’ve made it fresh.
The sidewalks were full.
At first I thought there was a school event I’d forgotten. People were lined up on both sides of the street, down past the bakery and nearly to the little hardware store. Some had strollers. Some had gray in their hair. A couple of the adults were carrying kids on their shoulders.
I counted badly, because my hands were shaking. Later Denise told me it was more than 400 people, and the crowd stretched for three blocks.
“What’s all this?” I asked her.
She stepped toward me, smiling but crying a little. “You’ll see.”
I looked for a school emergency. I looked for an accident. My first thought was that somebody had been hurt, and I’m sorry, but my mind went there before it went anywhere nice.
A man near the curb raised his hand. I knew him, but I didn’t know from where. Then he said, “Morning, June.”
It was Levi, the boy with the red lunchbox. He was grown now, with a child sitting on his shoulders. His daughter had a pink hair clip shaped like a strawberry.
I said, “Levi?”
He nodded. “You remembered.”
“I remember the lunchbox,” I said. Then I felt silly, because that wasn’t quite what he meant.
More people called my name. Former students. Parents. Kids I’d once walked through the crosswalk who had children of their own. One woman told me I’d sung to her every birthday from kindergarten through fifth grade. I didn’t remember every year. That’s the honest part. I’d written down the dates, but my memory isn’t a filing cabinet.
Then Denise handed me the notebook.
It was my own notebook. The one I’d carried for years. But there was a fresh yellow paper tucked inside, folded into the middle where I’d kept the birthday list.
I looked at it and didn’t open it.
“You wrote this?” I asked.
“No,” Denise said. “They did.”
I didn’t know who “they” meant. I thought perhaps the school had put together a card. I was already embarrassed by the crowd. I wanted to tell everybody to go to work and school, because that’s what I would’ve done if I’d been able to think straight.
Levi climbed down from where his daughter sat and came closer.
“June,” he said, “you always sang to us.”
“That was no trouble.”
“It mattered.”
I made a joke about my singing being a public nuisance. A few people laughed, and I was grateful. I’ve always found it easier to be funny than to stand there and take a kind thing.
Then I stepped into the crosswalk to do what I’d done for 31 years. I lifted the stop sign.
The whole crowd began singing.
It took me a second to understand they were singing “Happy Birthday” to me. I lowered the sign. I could hear the words coming from both sides of the street, from people who had been little kids and were now parents, nurses, mechanics, teachers. I looked at their faces and tried to pick out the ones I knew.
I didn’t sing along. I couldn’t.
When they finished, there was clapping, but not the big kind people do at a show. Just hands, and a few kids who were shouting my name.
I opened the yellow paper.
It was a short note signed by former students. The handwriting ran together in places, and some names I couldn’t read. The line at the bottom was written in block letters, probably by a kid.
It said, “You made sure we were remembered. We wanted you to know we remembered you.”
I sat down on the curb because my legs felt unreliable. Denise crouched beside me.
“You all planned this?” I asked.
“We started talking about it in March,” she said. “Levi found the others.”
Levi looked uncomfortable with the praise. “I just made a few calls.”
I wanted to tell him it was too much. That is what I would’ve said on another day. Instead I put the note back in the notebook and held both against my chest.
The city council voted the next week to name the corner June’s Crossing. I went to the meeting in my good blue sweater, the one I wore for Ed’s funeral and my daughter’s wedding. I’d planned to say thank you and leave before anyone made me talk too long.
They put a small sign near the crosswalk. No grand speech, really. Just my name and the years I’d worked there.
I stood beside it with the notebook in my hands. A little girl crossed with her mother, stopped, and pointed at the sign.
“Is that your name?” she asked.
“It is,” I said.
She smiled at me. “Happy birthday, June.”
I closed the notebook, but I still carry it in my purse.