Well here I am, staring at the only unopened present left from today’s celebrations, our third Fathers Day without the girls Dad. We started the weekend off with a bang….. my beautiful Auntie’s and the most adored Great Auntie’s 89th birthday. It was a wonderful day…… Not only did the sun come out after a shitty week of rain, but all of the family came from everywhere to share this amazing woman’s birthday, life and lifelong friends. My Auntie Thelma was also widowed fairly young, and never remarried. She never left the family home when she married, and her and my Uncle Beau stayed living with my Grandma Dot who would eventually lose her husband too, my Mother’s father, when my Mum was only 21. She stayed on with Beau after they had their first baby Marilyn, and they raised this daughter at the same time that Thelma’s Mum raised my Mum. So my Mum and her niece Marilyn are actually 6 months apart in age…… my Auntie is 24 years older than my Mum. Confused? Try explaining that one to your kids! So I adore celebrating the life of someone that has deserved to live it. Never one to complain, Thelma has been a battler all her life. She has survived so many changes in this Country since 1926…. what a incredible journey she has had, and what amazing stories she must know? She is smart and witty, and never bats an eyelid, even at the completely inappropriate things that come out of my daughters mouths these days. (Now more than ever.) She is a dedicated Catholic, with a heart of gold. In so many ways she is a contradiction, because she has embraced all things modern, like gay marriage, and living out of wedlock and having multiple fathers in one family…… like I said, nothing seems to phase her. Not that these things should, but lets be honest….. at the ripe old age of 89….. how many people are so open minded?! Anyway, a day spent with my extended family that I rarely see, in the old home I grew up in, with my sisters, their families and my Mum and dad….. it was just what I needed after the last few exhausting weeks. In the last week alone I have had a severe reaction to some new medication a specialist put me on, a police visit from two senior police women after Ruby ran out of school and all the way home as she wasn’t happy with the punishments that were being dished out to her for her shit behaviour in class….. and about three hours sleep a night due to my skin feeling like it is on fire….. all while trying to fill in almost full time hours for a co worker that took holidays…. a fabulous end to four weeks of emotional hell I would say! I always do like to end things with a bang……… Meanwhile in the back of my mind I was quietly waiting for the Father’s day crap to unfold…. the stall the previous week went off without too much of a hitch for once…. we concentrated on Pop who we were seeing today…. and this year Ruby decided to have a Father’s Day lunch with Rob, so she spent some money on a couple of gifts for him. Which was hard and weird for us, but turned out to be really good for them. I am glad. She has been without him for 11 of her twelve years in reality, so she has every right to see him, however little she gets from him. This morning we woke and spent our energy on Pop (my Dad.) In my eyes he is one of the greatest Dad’s to ever have walked the Earth (alongside Trenton of course) and I will never allow him to not know this. He knows as well as I that I wouldn’t have survived this last to years without him by my side. I cooked up a mega brekky for my sis and her hubby, their mates and the kids, Grandma Pop and I… and it was heaven. The girls gave out their pressies, and we ate and drank and just felt the love in the air. The girls were surprisingly happy this year. Poppy in particular (who I’d worried about more of course, not having anyone to celebrate it with unlike Rubes….) but she was amazing. And really funny. She headed off with my sis and bro in law, (happily I might add) and allowed me to nap for the arvo while they took her on a massive walk and play in the park. It all just fell into place for once. We headed off at four to collect Rubes and head out for dinner at a mates, and really, it all went amazingly well considering I was expecting the worst….. So a few cans later, a little reminiscing, and the old heart starts pounding again at the thought of never seeing this man again in the actual flesh. Yeah…. we survived another milestone, another painful day that other people will forever be celebrating with loved ones….. happily, while we’re not. Go us….. I am so proud of my girls, they handled it like two old souls that have seen way too much for their short years on this Earth. Troopers. Then I sat to have another drink, and I noticed the unopened pressie. And I realised in the continuous distractions that we threw at those girls today, that Poppy forgot to unwrap the present she bought at the stall for Trenton. I know she was hanging to all week…. a mug with the best Daddy on earth on it, and a choccy love heart card that she could eat once she’d opened it for him. I have kept the tradition going for them both, that they can go to the Father’s day stall each year, pick whatever they wanted for their Dad, but then they could open it on Father’s day on his behalf, and keep whatever they bought for him. Strange…. a little…… but so far it has worked. The underlying meaning is not lost on me…….. I do not think for a second that she is over it. Jesus you only have to spend a week putting her to bed to see that this is years away. But we are getting to the point where even in the face of utter devastation, you can still find a little light to keep you plodding through. Thank God hey? These are the tiny things that keep me going each day. This leads us to believe that there is “life” after a death. There is. As a matter of fact, it just so happens to keep moving forward, even if you wish that it would not. But thems the breaks kid. It is what it is. So Happy Fathers day to a man who took me on, even though I had someone else’s child in tow…… without the bat of an eyelid (just like my Auntie) and then created another wonderful daughter with me to be shared with Rubes and the family, hopefully for a shitload longer that he himself got to experience them both. I’ve said it before and dammit I’ll say it again…… this life can be a cruel bastard, and if you’re not scooping everything up and holding it tight…… well you’re an idiot quite frankly. So suck in every minute with whoever is there to enjoy the ride…….. I am certainly going to try. xxxxxxx
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