Birthday

Tomorrow is my birthday and it’s the first birthday I have had without a parent.  I didn’t get a card in the post; I haven’t had a phone call for over 2 months.  There is a big gap in my life – no doubt.  How tricky it is to move through change.  Really my Dad was an old man.  He was 86 when he died, a pretty good innings especially given his numerous health challenges.  His death was not unexpected and I had time to prepare.  Seriously I don’t know that any of those factors make the grief any easier, or the missing any less, or the sink hole in my life any smaller...but there’s the thing.  Had that been my father in his bed when the earth opened up and swallowed him out of the blue, with no warning and no excuses would I feel any different?  Absolutely have no idea!  The reality is its all relative.  Change is change is change; it is a certainty and a necessity.  How we approach it and run with it is the challenge.  Staying present to what is seems to be the key.  As my beautiful friend Teresa says – stay current with the current of your life.  A surrender for sure.  Let go and trust in the current.  I will never have a card from my parents again, nor a phone call, but I did have them and I am grateful for that.  I can leave that experience in the past and take the knowledge of the past that I had into the present that I am now creating.

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