It’s my Mum’s birthday today… and she didn’t want to do anything to celebrate. Since my Dad passed away it feels like she doesn’t want to acknowledge these things. It’s almost like she thinks she doesn’t deserve to celebrate birthdays and happy occasions. But I’ve been so depressed lately and I feel like the back pain has been on top of my pretty badly so I did what I always do when I want to ignore my problems… focus on trying to fix someone else’s problems.
Today I arranged to have lunch at my place with just us girls and a few glasses of wine of course and we watched a silly movie called Ghost Town which was just what the doctor ordered. I had made a lovely cheese plate as movie snacks but accidentally made it as though there was going to be a couple of boys in the rooms so instead of what I had planned for lunch we just had way too much yummy cheseses.
I had talked her into dinner out at a local restaurant a few weeks ago (Eleven-17... fantastic place if you’re in the area and haven’t tried it yet) and promised her it would be just the family. Once she got used to that idea, last week I conned her into letting me invite a few of her friends. Not many just a few people who’ve known her for the last 30 odd years you know. So far so good.
The gift is hard. What to buy the person who really has everything and really doesn’t ever seem to want anything??? My sisters and I decided to get together and undertake a Herculean effort to find a weekend where no one had any prior committments to arrange a family weekend away together. We managed to find a weekend (eventually) and BigSal found a great place to called Gilston Retreat down in the Gold Coast Hinterland that could accommodate us all and where we could book the whole place out. So after much wailing and gnashing of teeth (okay… after much back and forth on the MSN) the present was booked and squared away.
All up I think she’s had a pretty good day to celebrate her birthday. and I didn’t see Mum get upset or get maudlin about Dad at all. She even joked with us that if Dad was around he would have picked up the dinner tab at the restaurant and seeing that she has his money maybe she should be paying for everyone’s dinner!
Only now I’m home and really tired from sitting on crappy seats all night and acting all night like I’m okay and… I’ve got a monster headache to boot. But I think it was a good day for the most part… and I hope Mum will remember the day fondly even though I forced her into doing all that stuff to celebrate it.
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