Today would have been my dad's 83rd birthday had he not died in March. Can you wish a happy birthday to the deceased? Probably not, but what you can do is have happy memories, which I do. They are the ones I focus on. So on my dad's birthday I think of happy gatherings in my parents' garden on hot July days with family and friends. Had he lived it is unlikely we would have had what you would conventionally describe as a happy gathering. My dad's illness would have progressed and he might well have struggled to participate in any meaningful way. While that thought makes me sad, I have already acknowledged that he has passed out of what had become for him a 'vale of tears'. It certainly had become that for his family as we watched him suffer.
The last words he said to me - a few days before he died - were from his hospital bed. He said: "I don't want to see you in this place again". I have clung on to those words and tried to extract every last bit of comfort from them that I can. My take on those words is that they were said with the last scraps he could muster of his deprecating Yorkshire sense of humour. He knew his death was near, he knew the faltering remains of his life were bound to be unhappy and that those near him suffered to see him so poorly and he hated - oh, he really hated - being in hospital. And so he said: "I don't want to see you in this place again". And that was the last I saw of him and although I think it was for the best, there is still a tiny piece of me that wonders if I should have been with him at the end. So if I should have been, Dad, I'm sorry I wasn't, but I think of you a lot, and I miss and love you. In the end, all we have is love.
And all the above is why this posting is called A neutral birthday to you. It can't make it to being really happy and it shouldn't be sad, so it comes out level. Swings and roundabouts, yin and yang, up and down, in and out, on and off. Just somewhere in the middle.
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