Fathers:

It’s Father’s Day today and I have stuffed up yet again. I remembered to buy Father’s Day cards for my Dad and David’s Dad a week ago. I brought them home and they were in a carrier bag in our bedroom and what with a hellishly busy week last week, a bombshell from Jo the Naked Housekeeper on Friday (she’s leaving me) and guests, I completely forgot to post my Dad’s card. This has meant a grovel on the phone this morning and a daughter feeling guilty all day. Happy Father’s Day Dad, I may be hopelessly unreliable and hopeless in general but it doesn’t mean I don’t love you dearly. I do!!! (Love you dearly that is.)

David’s Dad has another special event in his life – he’s 70 on the Longest Day so we went to Linda’s house (David’s sister) for the afternoon and took Patti and Sally. They had a wonderful time and loved seeing a glimpse of a real English Family celebration.

Maurice’s two siblings were at the party and it was the first time I’d met them. I’m always paralysed with fear about meeting his rellies because I’m so worried they’ll all hate me or think I’m not good enough for DM. I know this is a nonsensical fear but nonetheless it plagues me every day. I spent the morning terrified and at that stage I’d not even realised ‘Auntie Jean’ would be there as well as Uncle Geoff. In the event of course it all went really well and we had a fabulous day. Thanks to Linda and Tony for their hospitality – especially as they were so hospitable to our guests as well as their own.

We all had cake and sang the obligatory ‘Happy Birthday to You’ and Maurice seemed to be thoroughly enjoying his day. Mind you, as they are off to Nice today I’d have expected a smile anyway. Happy Birthday Maurice – I hope you did have a fine day and are enjoying some sunshine in Nice today.

Mothers:

Of course the party was full of mothers…..David’s Mum, Linda H, Carol, Jean, Patti and Sally are all mothers, in fact I am the only woman who was there who isn’t a mother so I’m well and truly outnumbered. These ladies all have beautiful, healthy children and I can’t help but feel they are all a lucky bunch indeed. I love this photo of Patti and Sally, two more beautiful Mums I can’t imagine.

My reason for this assertion is that I have been thrown into a deep sadness, having received an email from a new friend that I met through PBASE. She’s not a PBASE account holder but she’s been contacting me regularly both in the message forum and privately by email for a number of months and I regard her as a friend despite knowing very little about her. She ‘connected’ to me through this diary and I feel a connection to her because she’s so nice and kind.

She once sent me a link to another website where you can ‘share’ photos and I looked through her galleries and saw two beautiful young women in many of the photos. I asked her if she was one of the women in the pics and she didn’t respond……it’s so difficult to know what people look like when you’ve only ever communicated by email of course. Later I discovered she’d been married too many years to be one of these lovely women so I assume these are her daughters. I heard from her this morning that she lost her daughter this week and, although I would walk right by this person in the street because I don’t even know what she looks like, I have been devastated by the news. No mother deserves to bury her child and no man deserves to spend Father’s Day in such pain.

I didn’t know what to do. I felt helpless. So I posted this in the tiny hope that she will see it and gain some little comfort from her friend across the ocean.

It feels wrong somehow that I have had such a nice day when others are going through what must surely be a living hell. I so hope she (and the rest of her family) finds the inner strength to deal with this appalling event. I am thinking of you now and will continue to do so for a very long time. Take good care of yourself.