CW: Death &Grief

My Dad died on this day 2 years ago.

Awkward huh?

Well, you might feel a bit awkward, coming here for fun sexy, kinky writings and you’re confronted with death and grief instead.

Soz.

But yeah, the awkward is more than that.

The 10th October is my birthday.

In 2017, a day and a little bit after my birthday, I got a phone call from my Step Mum. Dad had been rushed into hospital and they didn’t know how much longer he’d be alive.

Now, my Dad being the ornery bugger he is, he didn’t die then. He died on the 16th October, in Willowwood Hospice where he’d spent 3 days. He had lung cancer and after he battled it hard for over a year, it won.

It was fucking awful.

I count myself lucky, I have the birthday card my Dad had given me, days before he died. I have it up in the house so I can always look at it. I got time to tell him I loved him. To spend a little more time listening to his awful, awful jokes. I got hugs.

But yeah, it was fucking awful.

And I know he didn’t do it on purpose, but him dying 6 days after my birthday was awkward. Is awkward.

Last year I jumped deep into denial. It was my 40th birthday and I had all the things arranged. I threw myself into my birthday plans and my birthday celebrations. When the 16th hit, I crumbled. It hit hard. I suppose it being the first anniversary, it was going to.

This year, I found my birthday celebrations to be just what I needed to pull myself out of the preemptive dread. Having so many people I love around me was wonderful. Having the ever-loving crap beaten out of me (11 meanies with 41 strikes each is A LOT) meant I couldn’t think of anything else and I got some lovely, happy spacey time afterwards. I love my husband, my enboifriend and my kink friends. They’re awesome.

But my birthday will always be tinged with this sadness now.

It’s kinda awkward. I love to celebrate my birthday, but it’s hard to do so when such a reminder of such a loss follows up so soon after.

This year, I’m going to do some special things, that may turn to tradition. I want to commemorate his life, to try and find a little joy in the grief. I’m going to put a random bet on a random horse race on a random horse who’s name grabs my attention. My Dad loved his horse racing, he always bet (never much) and sometimes, occasionally, rarely he won. Mostly though, he was really good at picking the losers.

I’m going to cook a roast. My Dad made the best Yorkshire puddings (I’m gonna try GF ones, see how that goes) and the smoothest, creamiest mash. He also was a pub landlord for quite some time, his roast was enjoyed by many!

There will be scones for afters too. They’ll not be a patch on Dad’s. He made the very best scones ever. But I will do these things, enjoy the food and think of my Dad.

So it might be awkward, to have a celebration of life followed so soon by a commemoration of death, but it is what it is. And I will learn to make the most of it.