i thought i was done with the whiny, soppy posts. seems not though. cope.

i'm all out of the funnies today. so if laughter is what you're after its probably best you look for it elsewhere. allow me to suggest here, for example.

for those of you who feel like joining my (self)pity party, read on!

throughout the grieving process, the number of "firsts" can seem endless. first birthdays. first christmas. first new years. first grandchild. first holiday. etcetera. etcetera.

and this weekend i will "celebrate" my first birthday without my beautiful mother.

how do you like them apples?

on my last birthday my mum wrote me a card. she left it on my bed so i would find it when i came home at night. it had a picture of a ginger cat on it, as they always did.

that card was both the most beautiful and most painful thing i've ever read. that card knew as well as i did that it would be the last. that card was the very definition of 'melancholy'. that card was how my mother said goodbye to me.

she didn't pass away until three months later, and her actual last words to me were "i can still thump you". but in that card my mother said everything she could never say aloud, tightly-capped bottle of repressed emotion that she was. that card was love, gratitude, concern, pride, fear, hope and farewell all in one.

and now i want to see that card again. i want to see that card so bad it hurts.

but that card is in any number of unmarked boxes in a storage cage on the other side of sydney. and, as my mother would say, i've got "buckley's chance" of seeing it anytime soon.

fuckfuckfuckcuntingfuckfuckfuckkfuckfuckingfuckfuckfuckfuckFUCK!

happy birthday to me.

x