A thank you
to those thoughtful ones who have sent me messages in the knowledge that today
is the toughest day yet since Tony passed away.
Today is
Tony’s birthday.
It has been
comforting to learn that many folk realise it was never going to be an easy day
for me.
We always
celebrated birthdays. Well, I always
did. Tony tended to rebuff my desire to
celebrate his annual day of birth, but the rebuffs were never that
convincing. Everyone likes to be
acknowledged, to be celebrated, to feel special sometime in their life. So why
not on the day that one was born?
We had some
very happy birthday celebrations for his day.
The first major one was his 60th when we hired out the local
YMCA foyer, installed a juke box and had a catering company come with a
constant supply of canapés. That
day/night was particularly memorable for a number of reasons – but the one I
hold dear most is late in the night, when everyone had gone home, including us –
that Tony hugged me and thanked me for making him feel that he was a special
person to me and for loving him so much. I remember that hug as though he gave it to
me this morning. And the words he used,
they were so heartfelt and sincere; if
only I had written them down.
The next
major birthday of his which we celebrated was his 65th. The birthday he treated as a joke – because
he found it so hard to believe he was so old, that he was of pension age, that
he would forever get free coffees at McDonalds and each fortnight the
government would put some money into his bank account. At 65 Tony was really only 45. Mentally, physically and spiritually.
That was a
fun birthday. We hired part of a local
restaurant out and squashed everyone in to enjoy pasta and pasta and lovely red
wine. The photos keep coming up on the
PC when it has been resting for a while – everyone is laughing, everyone was
happy.
Then the
next major one to celebrate was a far more poignant birthday celebration.
It was his 70th and only seven
months earlier he had been given the life sentence of twelve weeks due to
having a brain tumour.
At the time
I thought it would probably be Tony’s last birthday celebration. We never discussed it. We never talked about an inevitability. But by the 21st July he had extended
by months his predicted ending. That in
itself was worth celebrating. But it was
his 70th and as much as he really did not want to acknowledge he had
reached that incredible age, I was determined we would celebrate as we had such
a lot to be grateful for and to enjoy.
Besides, he was still fit and ‘healthy’;
he had done Ironman only four months earlier, he was still biking,
swimming, running and enjoying Yoga and Pilates and anything and everything
else that was normal in our lives.
So it was a
Sunday at home with Tony.
I think
most people who came to enjoy the Sunday with us that day were of the thought
it would be the last birthday they would celebrate with Tony. Irrespective of their thoughts, the photos
taken on the day tell me that everyone was happy to be there, and Tony was
chuffed they were. Yet again, he was
more chuffed that I had organised the day.
Today would
have been Tony’s 75th. Hard
to think of him being 75 actually, particularly when you think that only 16
months ago he was doing Ironman.
Today has
been really, really difficult. This
whole last three weeks has been difficult.
This past week has been the most difficult. Buckets of tears have been shed, still
are. In solitude.
So it’s
been of much comfort to have had the messages.
We are
still celebrating Tony’s birthday though.
At this very moment some of the family are at the theatre, watching Tony’s
sister-in-law in a production (my sister), I am babysitting young Anthony and
we await the arrival of everyone back home so that we can enjoy an evening
repast of birthday celebration of Tony.
For the occasion I have made his favourite dessert. Apple and rhubarb crumble. He was never hard to please!
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