Another week drains out and my birthday celebrations come to an end for another year. Hasn’t been too much fun this year of course. 56 is not a milestone and being the first time in 20 years Linda hasn’t been here to celebrate with me was cause for me to worry how I may feel.
It wasn’t too bad to begin with. I’ve been looked after by family and friends which is very humbling and gracious on their behalf. I visited Linda’s grave at the cemetery; I think she would have expected that. Plenty of congratulations, a little bit of concern from others and some low-key celebration marked off another lap around the sun for me. Here we go again.
The emotional pressure does build some though, and I don’t think you even notice at times until it becomes a bit overwhelming. I was getting some acute grief before Mother’s Day, but it seemed to ease after that and leading into my birthday I was feeling okay.
I have been perusing old photos on discs I found in a cabinet which has been endlessly fascinating. Linda’s life, after her divorce and before she met me looms large in the galleries. Her girls are young of course; she has a fiancé who didn’t last, she is travelling and living her life and moving ahead. It would be two years before she walked into the Southern Cross Club in Phillip and introduced herself to me for the first time, yet the same woman is there. All the ingredients are present-yet she knows nothing of me!
It is quite strange to see photos of Linda interacting with our closest friends in situations which would become normal for me in the years to come. Social events and fun times which I knew nothing of and people who I would come to know and love in situations familiar to me yet so distant and foreign.
These photos are lovely to see but sad as well.
Which brings us back to the present. I hadn’t intended to have any sort of celebration, although commemoration might be the better word as you get older, but Linda had reached out from beyond the grave and given Monique some money to have a small get-together last night. She very graciously bought the food, co-ordinated logistics and invited a few people who were close to Linda and I. It all went off very well. I really enjoyed it.
Linda had of course thought of everything and when Monique arrived, she carried with her a birthday card for me which Linda had written in the days before she passed. It was brief but to the point, a tired woman stretching her reserves to the last in order to let those she loved know they had made her life worthwhile.
“Dearest Matt,
What a wonderful life we have had together. I have been blessed.”
I won’t go into the rest. That is enough. Her wonderful words are a gift that sustain me. But how sad that I will never see her again. Her words have broken me a little today.
And so, the hardest birthday is behind me. I am glad to have experienced it but glad it is gone. There will be other firsts for all of us. Other hard days.
Seeya Linda, and thanks, we love you and won’t forget you.
We struggle on, trying to enjoy life and I hope to be back fit and well next year to tell tales of my next birthday. Here we go. Strap in for another lap around the sun!
Until next time.
Strange Notations From a Laborious Life 