I celebrated my birthday alone this year. Alone because my dad and I share the same birth date — Nov. 7 — and he died three weeks before reaching his 81st.

I can't recall ever telling someone my birth date without mentioning that my dad was also born on Nov. 7.

We always made a big deal out of the fact we were born on the same day (30 years apart) and had a running bit to see who would call the other first to sing "Happy Birthday."

This year there was no one to call.

In the aftermath of a stroke and a cancer diagnosis, Dad had been pretty miserable these last couple of years. He had been in and out of the hospital in recent months, so his death was no surprise, although the end came faster than any of us expected.

I wasn't able to be there when he slipped away peacefully at home in Tucson, Ariz., but took comfort knowing I had just visited him with my daughter a few weeks earlier.

My son, who hadn't seen his grandpa in five years, accompanied me to the Mainland for the funeral. With relatives gathering from all corners, I wanted him to meet some of his cousins for the first time and to absorb as much family lore as possible. It was likely he'd never see most of them again.

Because of the distance and the high cost of family travel, my kids didn't really get to know their grandparents very well. It was the same story for me, growing up in Hono-lulu with grandparents in far-off Illinois at a time when air travel was even more prohibitive than now.

During my life, I saw my dad's parents maybe a half-dozen times and my mom's parents even less than that.

Even though we chatted on the phone with Dad at least once a week, my son and daughter were with him only a handful of times, and with kids, it's pretty much "out of sight, out of mind."

Sometimes it was hard to get them to come to the phone when he called. They would suddenly disappear from the room or make frantic signals that they didn't want to talk. It hurt, but I guess you can't blame them.

It's hard to manufacture affection when you don't really have a history with someone. You can't expect children to love someone just because you tell them to.

Their last couple of visits were after Dad was pretty much bedridden, so they had little clue what a rascal he was except from family stories of his college fraternity exploits, Halloween hijinks and neighborhood pranks.

He remained sharp until the end, eager to share tales about his impoverished upbringing, the war, his global travels and my own pratfalls.

In their final years, both my parents were too sick and too far away to develop a close relationship with their grandchildren.

I've already warned my offspring that once they are married with families of their own, I will follow them no matter where they go.

I don't want to be the one the grandkids run from on the phone.

Reach Christie Wilson at cwilson@honoluluadvertiser.com.