It starts every year in early April and some years hits harder than others, not sure why, but this year has been the hardest for a while. Generally I have the melancholy boxed up and stored on a memory shelf where I can keep it safe while I smile and laugh and focus on the wonderful now and exciting future. But for some reason this year I’ve felt the need to keep opening the box and trying to fathom how on earth I got through.

Let me explain the chronology of such statements. My Dads birthday was 9th April and so all my life that has kicked off birthday season with mine following 10 days later then both Arkid and my Mum 2 weeks after that. So all our family birthdays fell within a 4 week period. Dad died towards the end of May 29 years ago, so that happy period from my early life has had a sadness hanging over it for quite a while now, something I know was felt most by my Mum.

Arkid would’ve been turning 55 this coming May, but didn’t get that chance, in fact even his 50th and last birthday celebrations were muted by the tail of Covid restrictions. I found myself reading through old messages around the time of his birthday this week, which just served to remind me of the cancelled meet ups we had planned that birthday season, meet ups that were cancelled due to Jackki’s illness getting quite bad. What is striking about reading those messages is the innocent and naive sense of having plenty time to rearrange, we could celebrate together when things got better. No idea even then just how much worse things would get for both Dave and Jackki.

My truly amazing wife, Caroline, will make sure that I have a Happy Birthday and I am also massively looking forward to celebrating my incredible Mums 80th birthday with most of our family around us. In fact May has so much to offer this year when I put my head back on and look forwards, a new baby will join our family and our grandson Perry will celebrate his 5th birthday with Doggy Grandad proudly near the top of his party invite list. I can guarantee that I will never take such happy events and opportunities for granted, my opening of the melancholy box has certainly reminded me of that.

No photos or social media posts attached to this blog, I don’t really mind if nobody even reads it, just writing it down has helped me relax and get back into the moment. If you did take the team to read and take anything positive from my waffle then that is a bonus.

I’ve had some inspirational words rattling around that I wanted to share from a book by Simon Boas called a A Beginners Guide to Dying. He wrote this while terminally ill and facing up to his own imminent departure.

“All of us make a huge difference in life. I love the idea that most films about time travel revolve around changing one tiny thing in the past, and of course they come back to the present and everything is different.

If you project that forward, you can change huge amounts of things into the future.

All our tombs will be unvisited in a few years – all our actions will mostly be unremembered – but the smile you gave the checkout lady or the kind words you gave to a stranger in the street could still be rippling forward.

We all have that opportunity and it’s a huge power. And I want everyone to realise how special and precious they are.” Simon Boas, author of A Beginner’s Guide to Dying,