Wish You Were Here: Fourteen Seven Forty-Nine

Dear Mom…

Even though I’m sure I missed a few of these over the years, your birthday is one of the times when I miss you most. Especially on a day like today, when the sun is shining and my little Peni is so full of what you called ‘hootzpah’. I can only imagine that she’s a lot like you were when you were this young – I only have the one photo of you as a child (about 7, I think), but she has the Gillespie five-head, our wispy sandy-blonde hair, dimples and looks so much like me that I’m certain that she’s got only your genes on display. I know you see her and look over her, but I sure as Hell wish you could have met her. I know that being a Grandma was something you wanted desperately and it will always be one of my biggest regrets that I couldn’t give you that before you left. Still, she’s here and I’ll make sure she knows everything about you as she grows up.

I’ll be meeting up later with Carol and planting another tree for you this year. The olive tree we planted when we moved in to the house didn’t survive the combination of last year’s harsh winter and the cats deciding that it was a litter box, but the cherry blossom and apple trees are doing well. I wonder if Peni will bring in cherry blossoms for Carol, like I used to when I was younger, coming back from my paper route (while Drew was saving the neighbourhood from ne’er-do-wells).

I think I miss you most on your birthday because sharing your 56th was one of the last things we did together. I still have that picture of you, me and the cake. Typically, the chocolate sponge was lovely, but it looked like it had been frosted by an epileptic octopus using a builder’s trowel during an earthquake. True to form, you reassured me with a soothing, “I’m sure it’ll taste lovely” – the same five words of genuine kindness that you offered every other time I’d made a pig’s ear out of one meal or another. Presentation was never my strongest suit. I like to think that you were happy then – whether it was from the cake or the morphine, I’m still not too sure. You were smiling, though, and that’s all that matters to me now. Hard to believe you died less than three weeks later.

Fifty fucking six. Sorry, I know how you hate swearing. I remember how determined you were that wouldn't say 'that sucks' because it was so vulgar. But it really was criminal… and SO unfair. But then, when I used to whine that something wasn’t fair (probably something completely insignificant and brother-related), you always replied ‘Who ever told you that life was fair?’ What a shame that you had to be so right.

I’m determined to make this a happy day, but it’s hard. I miss you. I would love to share with you whatever I’ve manage to achieve so far by work, luck or grace (probably more of the last two than the first if I’m honest). On days like today, with the smell of freshly-cut hay on the slightly salty breeze drifting lazily up the Rheidol Valley, and with the garden just about to give up her gifts, I sometimes indulge in fantasies of you spending your summers here with us, with me, with Peni. They are powerful, poignant indulgences that often come to a halt all too quickly when I remember things like the striking fact that this is not your 62nd birthday but the commemoration of a birthday that could have been – that really should have been.

Please don’t worry – I am not bitter, nor am I often this morose. You have taught me enough to know that life is for the living; a lesson that, along with many more, resonates daily with me and with your happy, vibrant and very Gillespie-looking granddaughter here in Wales. No, I can’t complain that I’m normally this emotional when I think of you. But today, especially, I want you to know that I miss you and wish you were here. Happy Birthday – we all love and miss you very much.

Love,
Dim-Son