Nostalgia

I`m feeling a bit nostalgic today – this would have been my Dad`s birthday. He would have been 83 today. I know it`s just over 13 years since he died, but it doesn`t seem anywhere near as long. I still miss him a lot and birthdays bring back memories. I was thinking a little while ago of the different birthday cakes I`d made for him when I had an interest in cake decorating, there was one I iced with a river scene with a fisherman, another with a crossword, all took hours to do, but I can see now it was a labour of love. He was never one to like parties (and I take after him in that, and in so many ways), so birthdays were a quiet affair, yet I loved to make a fuss of him, to spend time with him. That was so difficult though when he was ill, as I didn`t want him to know how ill he really was, and I was so afraid of showing him how upset I was, that I didn`t spend as much time with him as I wanted to, and how I regret it. I often wonder too if my doing that made him think that I didn`t care? And that worries me still and there`s nothing I can do about it. I cared too much (can one care too much?), that I wanted to protect him from what I`d been told and knew, but he didn`t.

I had another `strange` link with him today too, I had to sort out some new staff clothing, and piling up the packs of shirts I could `see` his hands doing that, because he worked in a men`s clothiers.