Friday 12 August 2016

Fifty - not out

Today I am fifty, I don't feel it at all,  in my head fifty is a lot older than me, which is clearly nonsense. It's been a strange birthday, I was looking forward to it, my 40th birthday was during the demise of my first marriage and it fairly put me off Barcelona I can tell you, a lot has changed in the decade and I was really hopeful that myself and my lovely new husband would enjoy our trip to India for my 50th
Sadly my lovely gadget mad dad, who some of you have been reading about for many years died on July 22nd. We have had a truly grim time over the last year or so and his end was in no way reflective of the man he was. As my mums dementia is so advanced I am the person who has to take care of it all. I didn't realise how grief and possibly guilt can make people behave in such a peculiar fashion and a dreadful time was made so much worse by this. At one point I thought I would never speak to my sister again and I am most definite that I will never be in the same room as my dads sister who was actually asked to leave the undertakers due to her behaviour. We ended up with a funeral that was  nothing like he was but his View always was when you're dead, you're dead and people were adamant on having their own way  and I just didn't have the fight in me.
Today I realised that neither of my parents would ever be able to wish me happy birthday again and I am sad. Of course I realise that I am 50 and lots of people lose their parents much before this and that I have a fabulous family of my own which just keeps growing and growing.
I think this holiday is a little hiatus after the shock and then the sorting out of the funeral but I know when I go back that I will have to clear their house which is choc full of things my dad thought of as treasures but in reality is just full of his personality and dreams. After that the house will be so.d to pay my mums £850 per week care home costs.

The last thing my dad ever said to me was that he loved me, we ended every conversation with those words, I am very happy we did. As always, deo gratias.