Father's Day

So, Father's Day again...

But they do get easier as time goes on. This is the fourteenth one since he died. The first one was very hard as he died in early June and right from the start the shops were full of Father's Day reminders. I remember feeling ridiculously annoyed and cross about it.

It passed. Father's Day is just another day now. To do with other people, not for us. I had a lot of company this weekend, the Banjos, Dr Leitrim Sister and her husband. Six people, not one of us with a living Dad. Memories were shared.

And here are some more.

A handmade card that Daddy received from his granddaughter in 1989.

One of a series of photographs that my sister Patricia Moriarty shot. They are some of the best pictures ever taken of our father.

One of my own photographs. I think he might have been calling me an eedjit as I was trying to get him to smile.

The pair of them.

Father's Day

My father died in the month of June, not long before before Father’s Day and I found the run up to that third Sunday in June almost unbearable. I remember feeling bitterly resentful at all the advertising and posters encouraging shoppers not to forget that most special man in their lives. Twelve years have gone by now and I don’t mind so much. Father’s Day is just another day. It belongs to other people now.

But there are still some important fathers in my life. The children’s father is celebrating his day in sunny Cypress, Martha and Evie’s father went on a family day out canoeing and James and his father and mother are sweltering in Suffolk. Closer to home, one of my best ever girls, Miss Erin has given her partner his most wonderful present ever, a baby daughter who arrived yesterday afternoon, just a few hours early for her dad’s first Father’s Day.

Death and birth, birth and death and that all-important bit in between. It’s what keeps us going.

Seamus and Bert