Happy Birthday Mum - Wherever You Are

If my mum had lived beyond the age of fifty-five, today would've been her ninetieth birthday. I can't imagine her at that age when I look at the old women in my building. Provided she'd managed to avoid dementia, I think she'd have the same sense of humour and irony and common sense that she always had. I think the people we are in youth, adulthood and middle-age are the people we continue to be in old age. I certainly hope so anyway as I don't want to be someone else. I like me just as I am. I sometimes wish I could have another person's life but there's no-one else I'd rather be. I'd like to have Martha Stewart's life for example because she's able-bodied enough to be able to do all the things I miss doing and she lives on a lovely farm with beautiful gardens. I'd rather be me though while living her life.

So mammy - happy ninetieth birthday to ye. Still as funny and laid-back as you always were, regardless of where you've ended up. Being an atheist, you certainly wouldn't want to have ended up in heaven but I know your spirit lives on in me and in my own children, Evan moreso than Meredith by the looks of things. Maybe you'll live on in one or both of my granddaughters too. I'd love to see that.