
I love my birthday. I love celebrating my birthday. Yet, this year.
Every day is hard with grief, I’ll give you that one for free. And then somehow, some days are a tad bit harder. A lot harder. Like birthdays. Yours and theirs. And special days.
Last year, on my birthday, we were all there and there was cake, always the same cake, and laughter and that sweet promise of the future ahead that birthdays make you feel.
This year, for my birthday, I’m trying to come to terms with loss and an unsurmountable pain that doesn’t get easier as reality sinks in, it just gets more real.
As my memory tries so very hard to retrieve the exact memory of last year’s birthday, I notice the fading of the details, of the sounds, of the smells. I’m no longer in the same room, I’m watching it all happen from the door.
My Father loved birthdays and birthday celebrations too. His and everybody else’s. Part of me wants to celebrate for him and the other part isn’t sure he’d approve.
For the first time in forever, I don’t want to celebrate. I don’t want a cake, nor any vague idea that this is an important day he’s not here for. I want to pretend none of this is happening, whilst this shit reality sinks in a bit further, as a fine sharp dagger.
Cake or no cake, it will be a shit birthday, and who the hell likes those?!