I say this every year: birthdays are huge in my life. Growing up, birthdays were a big deal. My parents never had a lot of money, but we always had EPIC birthday parties – and my friends loved coming to them almost as much as we loved having them. As we got older, the parties faded away into adulthood, but the sentiment was always the same: the day you were born was one of the most important in history, celebrate the absolute shit out of it. Those who know me, know that I’ve adopted this mantra in its entirety and I celebrate the absolute shit out of the people I love when it’s their special day.

Every year, my family all but fought to message each other happy birthday first whenever it was someone’s birthday. Once the clock struck midnight, we’d message each other happy birthday and hope to be the first to say it. It was always a big deal.

Every year, long into adulthood, my dad would call me and sing happy birthday at me. Even if I rolled my eyes, or got embarrassed, he’d sing the whole damn song at me, because it was my birthday, damnit and that’s what you get on your birthday. It never occurred to me to record him singing it because someday he wasn’t going to be around to sing it to me himself.

This week has been hard. Everyone tells you that grief comes to you in weird moments and knocks the wind out of you. I’ve been on a runaway train, downhill, towards a friggin’ wall, all damn week. I’ve cried repeatedly every day and really struggled to keep my shit together. I wanted to sleep my birthday away and wake up next week when I wasn’t turning thirty-five, and when I wasn’t acutely feeling the absence of my dad’s singing happy birthday to me like he always has.

Sleeping away the day wasn’t to be, I have a few friends who wouldn’t accept ‘nothing’ as an answer when I told them what I was doing for my birthday. They went all out and made me feel so damn special and loved that despite my almost constant tears today, it’s been a friggin’ wonderful day.

My day started with my fantastic son, Lewis. Col’s birthday was a couple weeks ago, and Lewis was fine going to school on his birthday, he was fine not seeing him until after work and we never sang at him. So this morning when my tearful buddy said he didn’t want to leave me on my birthday, I couldn’t quite figure it out. He disappeared for a moment after saying happy birthday to me, and when he returned he asked if he could sing me a song. I told him of course he could and lo and behold he sings happy birthday to me.

Obviously, I burst into hysterical tears and thought his father had put him up to it. He tells me that Col didn’t say anything to him and asks me why I’m crying. I tell him that my whole life, my daddy sang happy birthday to me and this year he’s not here to sing to me (Yes, mama, cause he died). I told him that his singing really meant a lot to me this morning and made me feel truly special. He turned to me with his sad eyes and said, ‘mama, sometimes when people are in heaven, other people sing happy birthday to you,’ – so I cried even harder.

I honestly have no idea where this came from, but he seems profoundly aware of the fact that his mama places a great deal of importance on birthdays and he gave me the best gift he had, his unwavering love, along with my favourite Custom Bobble Head Dolls.

So my day started with tears, then I opened Facebook and cried some more. Why? Well, I’m in a Facebook group with over 800 people in it – and it was though every one of them posted messages to me saying happy birthday. An overwhelming amount of them were personal, beautiful messages and testaments to how lovely and amazing I am. And my favorite jeweller and hero, Alyssa Smith shared my book on her business Facebook page – y’all, MIND BLOWN. More tears.

After drop-off, I headed to my regular Thursday breakfast haunt to have brekkie with my bestie, Heather. Our kids are in the same class and every Thursday we have a fry and a cuppa and put the worlds to rights while we watch the ships come into the harbor. Having already warned both her and my lunch date, Liz that I am incredibly fragile and likely to sob today, she hands me a bag of gifts. I’d said something about her being my weirdo and I opened the bag to find a birthday card saying exactly that. She’d specially ordered me a robin keyring, D for dad, his birthstone and a robin (A robin appears when a loved one is near) and probably one of my favorite gifts ever – a Star Trek gin glass. From one geek to another, my wee heart was happy. I managed to keep my shit together for the most part, didn’t cry into my fry, but when I got home and put the flowers in a vase and unpacked the prezzies, yeah, you guessed it, more tears.

On the way home, I collected mail from the mailbox. I had some cards from the aforementioned FB group, and two red cards from the postie to tell me that I have gifts waiting for pick-up tomorrow. I recorded a video of me sobbing to the group to say thank you, because a simple ‘Thank you’ post just wouldn’t convey how truly touched I was by the outpouring of love and kindness. Yup – more tears.

Lunch with Liz in Belfast was next, I managed not to cry on the car ride to Belfast (whoop – accomplishment!) She bought me lunch, indulged my llama obsession and most of all she just sat and listened to me talk to her about whatever shite came to mind. I even got a hug – which almost set me off. The traffic on Boucher and on the Westlink came close again to inducing sobbing, but I made it home in one piece, where I promptly took off my bra as soon as I walked in the door (happy birthday to me!) put my pjs on and sat on the floor and sobbed.

Col was out picking up Lewis from his parents house and all I wanted was a bear hug from the five year old. He came home toting a bag from nanny’s. Turns out, she’d given him money for a treat for visiting her house and he asked if he could go and buy me flowers for my birthday with it – guys!!! My heart can’t take much more today, it about burst in my chest… and yeah… like I could manage not to cry at that.

I might be struggling with many aspects of my life right now, I might feel alone and lost in many moments and on some days I’d love nothing more than to fade away into obscurity. But on my darkest days, I have some of the best people who have my back. Even when I’m sobbing at them and pretending like I have my shit together when I really don’t, they’ve got me. And I’m so fucking grateful to each and every one of them.

Here’s to easily the worst, but also in many ways, the best birthday I’ve ever had. You’re all amazing. Thank you for helping me celebrate the absolute shit out of today.