Yesterday was my birthday. And it was a good one.

I know a lot of people who don’t care for birthdays, but I do. My mum used to always make a big deal out of them growing up and I think that that rubbed off on me. Not so much for gifts or for the fuss, but just for the celebration and doing things with people you care about.

The last few years of birthdays are linked inexorably with my mother. Like one several years back where she was coughing and having trouble breathing, a sure sign that something was wrong with her lungs. Then the following year which is one of the last times I remember her being her old self with the family. And, of course, last year, which seemed so soon after she’d died and which lay in the shadow of that.

It’s not that I didn’t think of her this year, but it was of happier times, about how special she made those days, and this birthday was special as well due to the efforts of N and my friends and I am so grateful for that and for everything I have and, though I hate saying this as a writer, it’s difficult for me to express in words how much that means to me.

Now it’s over and there’s another year to come, but I start it with a feeling of being loved and cared for and appreciated and that’s a powerful thing.

Let’s see where this next year takes us.