Monday 20 June 2011

Father's Day

This time last year, I deleted an entire blog post that never saw the light of day. In it I described how much I hated Father's day, which I did then. I had a pop at the fact that it was not a traditional celebration, just something that was made up in the 20th century to counteract Mother's day. I even pissed and moaned about the placement of the apostrophe, and why it's incorrect on every feckin' Father's Day card ever printed, (not to mention every place I mention Father's Day in this post). But my hatred really just came from how awful I felt. And the worst part of it was that I never saw it coming. I dreaded the onset of Christmas 2009. I knew the first Christmas without Emma would be indescribably painful. Same went for her birthday. But Father's Day was never on my radar. It'd never been a big deal for me growing up. My dad got his card every year, and very grateful he was for it, but we're not a big card giving family and it just was never seen as much of a big deal. For many years now I've had cards and gifts from my step-daughter Laura, and most likely because I give next to no thought to the Father's Day, it's always a lovely welcome surprise. Last year though, Father's Day just seemed to be a 24 hour reminder of everything I had missed out on since Emma had died and as far as painful days went, it overshadowed the likes of Christmas by a long way.

Hence the bitter blog post.

I did however make a decision not to post it. To be honest I'm not really sure why. We hadn't found out that Rach was expecting Aoife until a couple of weeks later so it wasn't that. Maybe I thought it was just too anger fuelled, but that's never stopped me in the past. I think, I just didn't want to attack something that is just there  to make people feel good, even if it made me feel crap. I'd have hated to think of my own father, or Laura reading me rubbish something that involves me and has a positive influence on them.

So Father's Day 2010 wasn't completely useless. My Father's Day present to myself was learning for the first time that maybe I shouldn't vent every bad feeling that comes out of not having Emma around, not even here. I'm glad I didn't attack Father's Day now, because this year, with Aoife, it was significantly better.

As a Father's Day present to myself this year I'm treating myself to another first. This is picture of Emma that I always have with me, and the first time that I have ever published it or any other picture of her for the world to see. You lot can now see how beautiful she was.




3 comments:

  1. She is beautiful and through her you learnt to be a parent. Now you get to be a happy parent too!

    *hug*

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  2. She was indeed gorgeous. I love the name too. It is nice to find another dad in the world of internet. I understood a lot of this post and the feelings you were referring too.I'm glad though, that this year has not been quite so hard.

    Take care (and thanks for the message on my blog).

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  3. She is perfect. I am so sorry that she is not with you now.

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