Remembering

Today, my father would have celebrated (or rather he would have tried to hide the fact) his 70th birthday. He would have - had he not been taken away suddenly nearly twelve years ago from those who loved him.

Everyone goes through the trauma of losing someone they love at some point in their life. When that person dies suddenly - in my father's case it was a heart attack - the shock of what has happened can numb those left behind. I went into automatic pilot when my father's body was discovered in the flat he lived in Paisley in March 1997. So much to do, so many people to tell, the funeral to organise, personal matters to see to. My father ran his own small business so that also had to be attended to. Clearing his answerphone at his office damn near broke me in two.

But while you never 'get over' such tragedy you do learn, in time, to cope with it. When I look at my two grandchildren Jack and Hannah climbing all over me and causing general chaos as young children do, I know that my father would have been as proud as punch of them. He doted on my two daughters, Laura and Michaela (the above photograph shows him and Laura when she was three years old) and it is one of my life's regrets that he died several years before his great-grandchildren came along.

So today I shall raise a glass to my old man and say 'cheers' to his memory. I'll have a wee natter with him in private when no one else is around. He always was a good listener...